My daughter loves all things cutesy and yummy. Combining those two loves, I sometimes make her snacks or meals in cutie patootie delicious forms.
Princess Peach loves peanut butter on crackers. I take large round crackers, peanut butter and either craisins or raisins. I spread the peanut butter on the crackers, then make faces, flowers or sun designs with the craisins or raisins. She loves it!
Flowery Crackers
She also adores marshmallows, so that was an obvious one to make a crafty critter out of. I took eight small pretzel sticks, painted a smiley face on a flat side with one of the pretzel sticks dipped into a drop of Hershey’s syrup, then jabbed them in the sides of the marshmallow to look like spider legs. This would be a fun and easy snack for those who celebrate Halloween.
Happy Spider
We often have sandwiches for lunch. Sometimes I’ll cut it into triangle shapes and put a large cherry tomato in the middle, all arranged like a flower. I’ll also take a cookie cutter and cut three or four pieces out of the sandwich in whatever shape it is.
Flower Sandwich
There is an endless array of cool things you can do with food! I only do the quick, easy and cheap varieties myself, since I am actually chasing around the kiddos I’m feeding, but I’ve seen some “food art” that would break your heart to eat.
Does anyone else like to get creative with food for their munchkins sometimes for no reason other than making them smile? 🙂
This is the first year my daughter has had a huge opinion about pumpkin decorating, and she wanted to do a family out of miniature pumpkins. She picked them out at the pumpkin stand (75 cents each- penny pincher insert 🙂 ), and was super excited to morph them into a pumpkin family to set out on our porch. I did not want to attempt carving pumpkins with two little ones. She wanted a happy family, not a spooky Halloween one, so I was thinking bright & cheerful things she could actually help with. So, I went to the Dollar Tree and got a few items I thought would work for decorating and for crafts later on, stretching my dollars further. We probably used less than $1.00 worth of supplies, so these pumpkins cost less than $1.00 apiece to make. Score!! 🙂 “Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com”
Read on to find out how to make your own pumpkin family without carving.
I was too busy creating our cute little pumpkin family with my four year old to take step-by-step photos. I let her pick what she wanted on each one and how she wanted it. She helped as much as she could with actually doing it, like sticking on the glued pom poms for hair & noses, helping paint the eyebrows, eyelashes and mouths, and sticking on the eyes.
Sister & Brother Pumpkin
We just made cute pumpkins without a knife!!
Above are the first two we made- the little girl and little brother. My little girl wanted her girl pumpkin to have curls like her, so I made her hair into curls by twisting each pipe cleaner around a pencil and sliding it off.
Below are the mommy and daddy, which we did last. I just curled the very bottom of the mommy’s hair, since she wanted it to be pretty much straight and long like her own mommy’s. She chose all of the colors for everything herself. 🙂
Mommy & Daddy Pumpkin
Did anyone else decorate pumpkins this fall? Any other parents squeamish about knives, carving and small crazy people? 🙂
Yesterday’s trip to CVS was a booming success. If you need diapers, sodas and/or dish soap, this is a great deal!
I bought three packs of Huggies diapers, three 12 packs of soda, two Palmolive dish detergents, a small mouthwash and a body mist.
Huggies and Palmolive were part of a deal where you get $10 Extra Care Bucks if you spend $30. I bought three packs of Huggies diapers at $9.49 each, used two coupons (if I had found the third that had fallen out in my purse, this deal would’ve been $2.00 better) and got two Palmolive dish soaps to complete the $30 minimum.
There is a coupon printing from the magic red machine for a travel size Colgate mouthwash, making it 50 cents.
I got a free body wash coupon for my birthday.
The 12 pack Coke products are three packs for $11, with $2 Extra Care Bucks for buying three packs.
I had $10 Extra Care Bucks left from a previous shopping trip a few weeks ago.
I also had a $5 off of $30 and $5 off of $15 coupons, one loaded on my card from an email and one a printed coupon, which both were able to ring on this transaction.
Total: $66.70
Cash Out of Pocket: $14.57
Extra Care Bucks for Later: $12.00
Savings Percentage: 78 (not counting the ECB to use later)
If I hadn’t had a 4 year old acting like a lunatic at the register, I’d planned to use the $10.00 Extra Care Bucks from the diapers and dish soap to pay for most of the drinks, which is what I’d suggest you do. In that case, you’d have only $14.47 out of pocket, or $12.47 if you can get the three Huggies coupons, unless you come in with the Extra Care Bucks like I did.
Want to take advantage of this deal? I’ll tell you where to get the Huggies coupons. Just make sure when you go in CVS to go to the red coupon printer for the in-store coupons. 🙂
If you want to earn points while printing these coupons, like I did, you can do so by joining Swagbucks and printing the coupons there. You can do so by following the link here:
If you don’t want to join the program and earn points toward gift cards or other great items just by printing coupons you are going to print either way, you can just follow the link below to simply print the Huggies coupons, although I am only seeing coupons for Slip-ons and Overnights, and I’d printed for regular ones on Swagbucks a few days ago:
I’ve been on the search for a cookie that had no sugar, no flour and only healthy ingredients I would have readily available, while still being the yummalicious treat that a cookie is meant to be.
Tall order? Yes, indeedy! Did I try a few oh-so-healthful recipes that didn’t cut it on the yummy side of things? You betcha! Have I finally tweeked and experimented until I came up with a sugarless, flourless, healthy handful of all things gooey and scrumptious about cookies? Yeah, buddy!!! 😉
These oatmeal banana cookies are extremely healthy, sweet, moist and delicious! I made them in two varieties- cinnamon raisin/craisin and peanut butter chocolate chip. (Okay, so there is a little sugar in the chocolate chips, but that hardly counts, right? ;))
These babies passed the husband test and the kid test with flying colors and were super easy to make. They also use only ingredients that I normally have on hand, and all of them are extremely inexpensive. I am just pleased as peaches to share this recipe with y’all!! 🙂
Peanut butter chocolate chip
“Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com” There may be other affiliate links to help my family while helping yours!
Yummy Oatmeal Banana Healthified Cookies
3 bananas, extra ripe 1/3 cup canola oil 2 cups quick-cooking oats 1/2 cup chocolate chips 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter 2 Tbsp. milk 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, mash bananas with a fork until smooth. Stir in oil, peanut butter, milk and vanilla extract.
Next, mix in oats and chocolate chips until well coated.
Drop dough by heaping spoonfuls on the cookie pan. Bake for about 15 minutes.
Variations: Add 1/2 tsp. cinnamon and 1/2 cup craisins or raisins in place of the chocolate chips and peanut butter. Add coconut and/or walnuts with or in place of the chocolate chips and peanut butter.
Makes about 16 cookies.
Enjoy! If you have any left by the time they cool, you could store them in an adorable cookie jar like this chalkboard cookie jar!
Love pure quality essential oils, but have a tight budget? I love Barefut Essential Oils, and they run some amazing specials on top of the usual great prices! https://barefut.com/?a=1116
This is a delicious cookie by regular standards. I won’t cook “health food” that tastes like crud on a stick, so trust this southern gal that these are yum-yum-yummy by the standards of those of us who are not well adapted to cookies tasting like tree bark. 🙂 You don’t even miss the sugar at all. It’s also such a simple enough recipe to whip up that it’s a great choice for cooking with kids. That’s huge for me, since my 4 year old loves helping Mommy whip up some goodies to share.
If you’ve been on the search for a kid approved, man approved, southern fried chick approved treat that happens to be extremely healthy and penny pinching friendly, this is the recipe for you! 🙂 What kind of goodies do you wish you could find a healthy and delicious version of? Are there any that you have tested yourself that passed the taste test as well as the health test?
The mask & cape were gifts purchased with Mommy’s rewards programs
This post has been updated to add some tricks I’ve learned since I originally posted this last year. I hope that you will enjoy Swagbucks as much as I do! Please follow my referral code at the end to join and reap the benefits of this awesome program!
I want to share one of my very favorite points earning programs with y’all! Swagbucks is easy to use, and the points add up very quickly. I actually paid for most of my daughter’s 4th birthday presents using Amazon gift cards that I earned through Swagbucks and SavingStar by doing things that I would do with or without rewards programs!! I got over $35 worth of adorable gifts for my daughter from Amazon, with only $6 out of pocket expenses after using the gift cards I’d saved up from those two programs! Talk about doing the penny pinching mama dance!! 🙂 I’m already racking up points to use for some of my Christmas shopping in a few weeks. (There are other pay-outs, but the Amazon gift cards are my favorites.)
By now I’m sure you’re wondering how it works, right? Well, let me walk you through the basics…
450 points can be exchanged for a $5 Amazon gift card. There are other payouts, including Paypal payments, gas cards, gift cards to many other popular stores, travel expenses or items in their own Swagbucks store, but this is the only one I’ve used and a simple reference for the value of the points you’re earning through your activities. It is also the best value I have found.
You earn random points by using Swagbucks as your search engine instead of one of the conventional search engines like Yahoo or Google. Just today, I got 10 points for doing a search for photo coupon codes using their site. It pops up when you do the search if you got a code, then you just type it in and enter and it is added to your account balance toward your next payout. Easy peasy!
You can shop through their shopping link with many online retailers, and earn a designated amount of points for every dollar spent. The average points per dollar seems to be from 2 to 7 points, from my observation. This is great if you are doing online shopping already! I earned almost enough for a $5 giftcard just by clicking through their links to order ink for my printer a couple of months ago. I was going to order it, anyway, so that was free money to use for my daughter’s gifts later. 🙂
You will earn 10 points for every coupon that you print and redeem through their coupons link. These are pretty much the same coupons that you get from coupons.com, but you’re getting rewarded for using them. If you’re like me, and use alot of coupons to stretch your budget, this is an awesome way to rack up those rewards quickly! Sometimes you are also entered into sweepstakes for every coupon you print. The other day when I was printing coupons for diapers and groceries, I was also being entered into a sweepstakes for $250!
Swagbucks frequently releases “Swag Codes” that you can enter in a special box in the top of your screen for bonus points. These are usually only good for a short period of time. For example, today there was one that was only good until 5pm EST, and I earned 3 points just for entering “Wagbucks” into the little magic box up there. My favorite site for keeping up with the codes is .
You can also install a tool bar, which I have chosen not to do, since I’m not too fond of tool bars in general. Every day they havea “Daily Poll”, which pays 1 point just for choosing your answer. You are able to participate in surveys, which will pay you a varying amount of points per survey. They have different “tasks” you can do for extra points, such as completing certain searches and informing them of the top 3 sites that show up. If you choose to join various programs using their links, you’ll earn points for doing that. There are video advertisements available at times to watch in exchange for more points. I’ve not taken advantage of all of these opportunities, but there are alot of different ways to keep adding onto that points balance if you have the time and inclination, most of them without spending one red cent! 🙂
Birthday girl. She had a ninja turtle/princess party. 🙂
Another way that you can earn points is through referrals, of course. If you like the program, you share it with others. If they join through your link, you will earn some points from that. If you’re interested in joining Swagbucks after my honestly enthusiastic review here, I’d be tickled pink if you’d use my referral link below. 🙂
If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to try to answer. This really is a great program that I enjoy immensely, and I’m happy to be able to share about it with anyone who will listen! 🙂
*Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Three out of five members of our family have birthdays coming up in the next three weeks, and I’m already seeing some of the fun free stuff we are going to get in this year. There are alot of birthday freebies out there, and many of them have perks all year long. I’ve seen alot of them, but haven’t take advantage of them all. Some are not in my area, others I’m not interested in, some I just wouldn’t use. I’m only sharing a dozen of the birthday freebies I’ve actually signed up for, used myself and liked, so I can vouch for them. I’m aware of alot more, and plan to sign up for a few new ones I discovered while looking up these links to share with you, so I’ll probably update this list in the future to share some new favorites. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.
Ace Hardware. My husband is always needing something from the hardware store, so a $5 off of a $20 purchase coupon is more than welcome around his birthday. This is also a rewards program. http://www.acehardware.com/acerewards/index.jsp
Captain Ds. I’ve got everyone in my family signed up for this one. Free meals on our birthdays? Yeahhhh, buddy!! http://captainds.com/join-ds-club/
Dairy Queen. I love this one, because you get a buy one get one free coupon for a Blizzard on your birthday and other coupons throughout the year. http://www.dairyqueen.com/Blizzard-Fan-Club/
Firehouse Subs. No link needed on this one. Just show up on your birthday with your photo ID, and they’ll give you a delectably free medium sub. My husband is partial to this one, being a firefighter and looooooving their subs. 🙂
Red Lobster. This is one of our favorite places to go for our rare dates, so it was a given that I’d sign right up for their club. The birthday surprise is usually a dessert or something like that, but the coupons throughout the year are even better. http://www.redlobster.com/club/
Toys R Us. Another one for the kiddos. Free gift card, and you can sign up for a phone call from Geoffrey Giraffe and can get even more goodies if you show up in store. https://geoffreysbirthdayclub.com/
Which birthday freebie are you most excited about getting for your birthday or someone in your family? For free clothes, check out Schoola Discount Clothing
Want a busy time activity for little ones? How about making cupcake wrapper flowers? I originally saw the idea on another blog somewhere, but adapted it to the materials we had on hand at our house and the way my daughter wanted to do it.
We used:
Cupcake wrappers
Twigs
Twisty ties (like come on loaf bread)
Buttons
Sweet smelling body spray
Feel free to make substitutions on any materials. Remember, we just used whatever we had on hand.
Stringing buttons
Stack the buttons in whatever pattern you want or even just use one button, stringing them on the twisty tie. Poke holes in the cupcake wrapper (I used an ink pen with a button as a template). String the twisty ties through the holes, attach the twig to the back and twist the ends around it firmly.
Smells yummy!
My daughter loved the next part. I let her pick out a sweet smelling body spray, and spritz all of her new pretty flowers. She loved smelling them, and had me reapply it every week or so to keep them smelling like delicious.
Tada!!
My daughter was so proud of her handiwork. She’d had so much fun gathering up twigs that were just the right size, selecting the perfect buttons, and helping me put it all together, she could hardly wait to show them off.
Baby food jar vase
Of course, with such gorgeous blooms to display, I had to come up with a vase to showcase them in. What else would I use in a house with little ones other than an empty baby food jar? I let my daughter decorate the jar with sparkly jeweled sticker things, which she thought was just the right touch. She set her beautiful bouquet proudly on the shelf at the head of her bed, ready for sniffing and seeing at any time. 🙂
This is such a simple, sweet craft with materials most of us have around the house. It definitely works for both my penny pinching side and my creative side. What are some things you have lying around your house that you’d love to find a creative use for?
There are some great coupons available for printing right now if you have any diapered bottoms in your house! I’ve already taken advantage of using these with some sales last week, but didn’t do a post about it in time for y’all to take advantage of that bargain. I was very sick for a couple of weeks there, and neglected almost everything other than my children & husband, unfortunately. The coupons are good for awhile, and regardless of where you shop, they’ll rack up savings quickly. The best coupons are on Huggies diapers & wipes and Pampers diapers, but there are other baby coupons, as well.
If you want to earn points while printing coupons you’re going to use with or without the points earnings, please see this post and sign up for this awesome program and print your coupons there:
Do your little ones enjoy getting mail? I know Princess Peach does! I was pretty tickled to find out that she could get a Lego magazine in the mail each month for absolutely free! I signed her up and waited. Sure enough, she started getting these bright, colorful, cute magazines in the mail addressed to her, and has continued to for the past year and a half or so since I put her on the mailing list. They include instructions on some Lego project, things to color and little stories featuring Lego people, among other things. As you can see in this picture, my little Lego lover loves getting her own magazines! Think your kiddo would, too? Sign ’em up here!
I must admit. This recipe was born from the same place many of my “recipes” are born from: It was simply a case of me wanting something quick and easy to make to fill up my family’s grumbly tummies with ingredients I had on hand. I actually had leftover mac and cheese when I first made this, and just scrounged around the cabinets for something different to make a dinner-in-a-dish with my leftovers. My kiddos really enjoyed this Mexi-Mac, but if you don’t like any spice at all, you could probably do it with plain diced tomatoes or half plain and half the kind with chilies. It would be good with ground beef added, as well. There are so many ways this could be changed up, and it would still be yummy. It’s really just up to your family’s tastes and what’s in your cabinets that day. I’m the queen of playing with recipes to make them work for my family better, or just to use ingredients I don’t have to run out and buy. 🙂
Mexi-Mac
1 10 ounce can Rotel mild green chili and diced tomato
1 16 ounce can black beans
1 box mac and cheese, prepared according to the instructions on the box
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix Rotel, beans and mac and cheese together in a 9X13 baking pan.
Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until everything is warmed through and cheese is melted.
Enjoy!
*keep reading*
Do you have any dishes that were inspired by leftovers? Does you family eat leftovers or turn up their noses to them? I know some folks hate leftovers, but we hate wasting ours! We often eat them just reheated, but almost as frequently we have leftover makeovers. Sometimes you wouldn’t even know what the original meal was. Yep, I’m that good! 😉
There are no coupons for these specific ingredients, but they are so inexpensive that it almost doesn’t matter. There is a coupon for frozen Hanover beans here, if you want to try those, though: http://www.coupons.com/coupons/Food-Coupons-107/
, mash bananas with a fork until smooth. Stir in oil, peanut butter, milk and vanilla extract.
with cooking spray.
!
Penny Pinching Peach 