Tag: homemaking

Azure Standard Bulk Buying: 6 Month Review

bulk buying with azure standard

The rising food costs and trying to move back into an “ingredient-based” pantry I have been paying more attention on where to get the best prices. Not only have I found grocery items, but some of my household items are available and less expensive through Azure Standard. On top of the prices, buying in bulk (a larger quantity or in multiples of 3) has help build my pantry storage up little by little without overspending.

Azure Standard has been around for decades, but the company has grown a lot in the last couple of years when people really started to look into bulk buying, me included!. They are a co-op based out of Oregon, but have routes throughout the United States they drive every month; this makes bulk buying Non-GMO and organic products more widely available to everyone.

Changing things like shopping once or twice a month versus weekly shopping trip helps too. Paying more attention to which the biggest area (meat, produce, dairy, etc) has been a big help when trying to manage food inflation also! Bulk buying has never made more sense than it does in these times and Azure Standard makes the process easy.

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Home Manager Binder: Keeping Track of What We Eat and Use

During the pandemic I was able to mostly keep on our pantry and household needs, but I was never able to really get a rotating stock our pantry and linen closet. Add in the fact we had baby number six in the spring last year and I just continued to buy what we need, when we needed it. Therefore, my big homemaking goal of 2023 is to keep an inventory of what we use and consume so we can work on stocking the pantry and linen closet (toiletries). Enter: The Home Manager Binder.

Not only do I want to get a good rotation system down I needed a way to track how much we need for a 3 months/6 months/12 month supply for our large family. This will also help me when items go on sale, especially for those items we rotate through quickly.

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Changing Grocery Shopping Habits in 2022

I feel like the last two years we have been playing dodgeball, ducking and hiding, just trying to stay in the game — that’s how I’ve felt running my home the last 2 years when it comes to meals. In this post I am sharing how I changed my grocery shopping habits in 2022.

We are supposed to be back to “normal” now, but with inflation and craziness continuing to happen I just want the “dodgeball game” to end.

We are currently a family of 8! We welcomed our 6th child early this spring, and I don’t know if it was the fear compilation of the last two years while grocery shopping or simply my ever-changing hormones, but I started to feel super defeated. One of our largest expenses, food, has gotten way out of hand this year.

I really had to sit and review my menu plans and grocery receipts to look at inflation, what I’m buying and realized it wasn’t necessarily me letting grocery shopping slide, inflation is happening — but I decided something had to change. So here is how I started changing my grocery habits in going into the second half of 2022:

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Meal Planning and Money Saving Tips

Do you enjoy spending time in the kitchen with new recipes? Do you meal prep so you can save a ton of time with your busy weekly schedule? Do you cook just so you can eat?

A big part of money saving in the kitchen is meal planning, but I also know it feels a little “plain jane” sometimes, but it doesn’t have to be – it’s time to learn some tips and get creative. I’m someone who enjoys being in the kitchen cooking but is actively searching for ways to save money with the recent spike in food inflation. No matter where on the scale you land, these meal planning and money saving tips will help.

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Prepping Our Home for a New School Year

Today I am sharing 6 tips on how I prep our home for the new school year. I’d love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment.

Homemaking Schedule

I have had a homemaking schedule for years. With the ebbs and flows of life, I still find myself coming back to it. Prepping our home for a new school year definitely feels welcoming after the chaos of gardening, fishing days, bike rides and all the summer fun that leaves the homemaking a little to the wayside. I have a whole series here on the blog about my different days of homemaking (kitchen day, office day, laundry day, cleaning day, and errand day). This helps me keep up on our home and keeps the daily focus to one “task.”

home making schedule
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Declutter Our Home: Journey Towards Minimalism

The baby nesting phase hit last Fall, followed by the birth baby number five, Connor, before Christmas, COVID started in March and by that time I was more than ready to get back into a better routine and declutter our home. All of those reason tornado’d into buckling down and get started simplifying and really focus on declutter.

“Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.”

kitchen declutter
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Who Else Wants an Easy to Follow Homemaking Schedule?

homemaking schedule

Keeping up with the house can feel really overwhelming when there is so much to do: piles of laundry to wash, bills to be paid on time, toilets to keep clean, and keeping all the people fed. Up until a few months ago I didn’t have a very effective plan for a homemaking schedule but let me tell you it has made a huge difference!

Take a few minutes on Sunday to look over the week ahead and plan your homemaking schedule around your life — not your life around a to do list or a cleaning schedule. This is an easy to follow homemaking schedule, please know that it is flexible and changeable; not ridged or concrete. (more…)

Listening, Doing, Making

Happy Tuesday!

I have literally minutes before any of the four kids need me. Two kids are just over being sick and the other two are currently which means my days are long, sleepless, and full of little ones needing attention! I found a few minutes to hop on and share a few things I’m listening to, doing, and making.!

Just finished this book via audible: (more…)