I am a stay at home mom with four wonderful kids. I have been married for over 10 years to my best friend. I am head over heels in love with him. He always supports my crazy "thrifty adventures". We have a lot of fun together.
I was raised on a small dairy farm. Where I learned very young, the value of hard work and how to be thrifty in all areas of life. Growing up our meals were made from scratch. Only on special occasion would we get name brand cereal, chips, or any other fancy treats. Now that I am a Mom with my own budget, the basic foods always comes first. I too make most of our meals from scratch and take pride in feeding my family a well balanced healthy diet.
I enjoy seeing how far I can make our budget stretch, and when I take the time to match sales with coupons I am able to get all those "fun & fancy" items that would other wise be out of my budget. Being thrifty has always been a way of life for me, but it has also become a real joy.
Have you seen the new recommended guide lines for portions? ChooseMyPlate.gov website has the complete details on the new replacement to the food pyramid that many of us have grown to learn back in school. Personally I think this version is a more realistic approach to visually learning the way a plate should look. It seems like the new generations are all visually stimulated, so this is an excellent way to get the image engraved in to our heads.
And with great sources to fill your plate like the excellent food from folks like Green Giant, there isn’t an easier way to get healthy produce to fill the largest portion on your plates. Did you know that Green Giant frozen food process actually preserves more nutrients, vitamins and minerals in frozen food then the “raw” or “fresh” vegetables in the grocery department. Yep it’s not a myth! It is true! Click the image below and look for it at the bottom of the Green Giant website to read from independent studies of the health benefits of frozen Green Giant vegetables:
Look for this image at bottom of Green Giants website here
A Thrifty Mom.com has not been paid for this post – It is the sole opinion of A Thrifty Mom.com
Congrats to our winners listed below to the Rayovac Lithium Ion Power Pack giveaway! Make sure you check your emails that you used to enter for the instructions on how to claim your prize pack!
Winner: holly r
Comment: shared with my friends via email
Winner: Carla
Comment: shared this on facebook!!
Winner: Dee
Comment: Left the comment on Rayovac’s facebook page
Winner: Jenina B
Comment: I visited Rayovac’s Facebook’s page, Liked them and left a comment saying “ I can’t wait to win the new Lithium Ion Power Pack on A Thrifty Mom.com “
Thanks to Rayovac, they have given us four new Lithium Ion Power Packs to give to you! These are awesome! If you haven’t seen one before, check out the review I did a few weeks ago on it. These make perfect stocking stuffers. They are small, and powerful, and is a great match to any one who has an electronic device!
They can charge your phone while you are on the run, or any other electronic rechargeable device. So small and carries an awesome charge!
The giveaway ends Tuesday Nov 29th, 2011 at 10pm mtn. Four winners will be chosen by random and contacted by email. Please provide a valid email address to contact you. All anonymous entries will be voided. For additional rules read here
To enter to win do one or all of the following, then come back to THIS post and leave a comment saying what you did:
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Our Green Giant visit a fewmonths ago was so fun. We met some great people and got to eat some great food! But if you are in need of a quick costume.. here are some totally cute and easy to do costumes! be a “Sprout”
A Few Short Cuts - little girl
This this Green Giant outfit is the best
easy way to make a cute costume
Some face paint, and some felt - seems like a quick costume
If you are looking for some thrifty tips on ways to save on veggies then you may want to take a look at this article on Green Giant Blog today. It is only part one so many more tips are on the way. A Thrifty Mom was honored to be one of the featured blogs to offer our money saving tips.
So Halloween is just a couple weeks away! Have you put thought into it yet? There is always a drive to show off our kids. They have so much fun and love running around saying “trick or treat”. Last year The kids dressed them self. Mckeely wanted to be a evil ballerina. Maleeya wanted to wear her tutu. Matthew wanted to use his batman costume, and Maveric was just cute in his eeyore costume that we picked just to keep him warm.
Maleeya loves to dress up and look pretty.
This year, since Idaho usually gets some form of heavy frost or snow by Halloween, we still needed to keep little Maveric warm. We found this cute monkey outfit at Other Mothers. He giggled when he saw it and when we got home dug through the bag till he found it. He ran around the house the other day wearing his new monkey outfit. It fits him because we have always called him “chunky monkey”.
But outside of the fun of costumes is safety and the decorations. Many people are thinking a little more about pumpkin safety. Not carving them, but lighting them. When I was young I remember smelling burning pumpkin as I went door to door trick or treating. Back then every one used candles, and they always seemed to dry out and start to char the inside. Every now and then I saw people pouring water on them to put out the char.
Why worry about that when you can use a candle that is safe and powered by a battery? And with coupons now a days that is so easy to do! And while you are out following your kids around the neighborhood, and the next neighborhood, and so on, you don’t have to worry about your pumpkins catching on fire. Just use a small LED flashlight or lantern from Rayovac!
It is so easy to use this lantern it comes with three of the AA Rayovac. It is the Rayovac Sportsman Xtreme Mini LED lantern. With a dollar off coupon on any flashlight you can pick one up for a thrifty price. I know these are in Walmarts and other major retailers nation wide. So go ahead, carve your pumpkin and light it up and forget about it. You wont have to worry about the pumpkin catching on fire, and you wont have to come home to a dark dim pumpkin with the power that Rayovac batteries provide! This lantern can run for 35 hours continuously! Talk about trick or treating~ you could do your whole town and come home to the pumpkin still lit up!
There is such a need for power in today’s world. Power in large and small quantities. Rayovac’s new Platinum Lithium Power Pack PS60 meets that need head on. Check out this review that shows the Platinum Lithium Power Pack and its features. You can also see a competitor unit that I have used in the past.
What I got to test was just perfect. The Rayovac PS60 has no moving parts. The competitors unit that I just got about two months ago, is large, very heavy, and bulky. There is no way you just slide it in your pocket. Also about two weeks ago I had to send it back after using it just once. The plug end of it that moves broke internally.
With the Rayovac PS60 there are no moving parts. You have the Lithium Ion Power pack, a carrying bar that hold the three adapters – micro – USB, a mini-USB, and an Apple charging plug. It also has the charging cable. You have one cable the adapts to them all. On the top side of the power pack there are two ports. One says “IN” which is to charge the actuall unit when plugged into a charging USB port like on your computer. Next there is an “OUT” which you take the power cord USB end and plug it into the PS60 and attach what ever charging plug you need for your electronic device. And your unit has some 6 hours of talk time for a phone!
If you are on the phone for six hours – You might of well set a new record! So this Platinum Lithium Power Pack the PS60 might even help you set that record!
You can find it at Walmart for about $15 bucks!!!! (In stores Monday 9/26/11)
Here are more of the features that were not included in the review.
Features and Benefits:
•Rechargeable Mobile Device Charger
•800 MAh Lithium Ion Rechargeable Battery Charges in 3 Hours
•Recharge PS60 by USB or your device wall plug
•Includes adapters: Micro USB, Mini USB, and Plug for Apple Devices
•Charge Cell/Smart Phone for 6 hours of Talk Time
•Recharge MP3 Player and iPod Nano 3X
•Compatible with cell/smart phones, digital cameras, portable gaming devices and MP3 players
•LED Battery Gauge Indicators
•Colored LEDs: Indicate Charging Status
So stop by Walmart, starting this Monday and pick a couple up as stocking stuffers for your family and friends!
And don’t forget to visit Rayovac’s Facebook page for the latest Rayovac product coupons
With so many different electronics out today, combined with so many different types of batteries, how can you make the right choice? Which ones should you get to protect your electronics and make your purchase “thrifty”. Making a battery purchase “thrifty” is more then just using coupons! By picking the right battery for the right type of electronics you maximize the batteries potential and can turn a normal toy or mp3 player into your favorite. How? Well let’s look at the different types:
We all know about Single Use Batteries. They have been around for what seems like forever. Most tend to buy these because the cost can be lower then the other types.
The next main type are Multiple Use or Rechargeable, or even called secondary batteries. Rechargeable batteries have a variety of types of internal components. many have shelf life of 10 years, while some can be recharged hundreds of times. These can be confusing because with technology there has been a growth to these type of batteries and what they are made of. Here are the different types that you may see on the labels:
Nickel Metal Hydride – NiMH
Nickel Cadmium – NiCd
Lithium Ion – Liion
Sealed Lead Acid – SLA
With so many different electronics and applications which battery should you use and in what? Here is a list of electronics and their recommended battery:
Rayovac Heavy Duty battery - best for low drain household electronics:
Day two of our trip to Minnesota to the land of the Green Giant. I heard we would have a special visitor at breakfast I wondered if it was going to be a tall, half naked man, covered in green paint and leaves….. hmmm that may be a little awkward. I am happy to report I was greeted instead by the adorable “Sprout”. I grew up watching Sprout on the Green Giant TV commercials and I have to admit I am a bit a of fan. Who needs the Disney princess when you have this cute little fella around. I just marked one of my childhood dreams off my life list. Now if I could just poke the Pillsbury Dough Boys tummy….lol.
As you can tell Matt and lil Sprout were doing some male bonding as he took a nice little punch to the gut. No really all joking aside, it was fun to have a few pics with Sprout and made me feel like a kid again.
We then got on the bus and had a 45 minute drive to Le Sueur. On the way be watched a video telling us about the history of Green Giant. They have been around since 1903. They started small, made it thru 2 wars but pushed along and now nearly 1000 families farms grow vegetables using decades of experience. In doing so helping to feed American families. Do you know how Green Giant got their name? It was because of the abnormally large Green Peas they were able to grow.
The video ended with this kind of cheesy…ok really cheesy, dramatic music that was meant to stir up emotion…… or hold a lighter to and wave your arms to. Either way the bus was full of giggles. The words went something like…
Someone working on a dream….Some where beyond the harvest…. you get the point.
But I have to admit I kind of liked it. Growing up on a farm I totally got that all that hard work had a purpose. Working towards the dream of providing for your family and others thru your harvest. I better not let my mom get a hold of this song or I am pretty sure she would make us all memorize it, learn parts and preform it at the next family reunion.
Last but not least I was able to spot something in the trees…. do you spot him? The bus was moving so fast it was hard to get a good photo…. look hard. The Green Giant is hiding.
Well it’s Matt. As many of you know Sarah and I just got back this past weekend from visiting Green Giant’s facilities in Minnesota. Let me say we had tons of fun! But many of you might be wondering what a guy thought of a trip among 22 other bloggers who were all female. Well the main thing I learned was – Yummy! Yes I ate a lot! As you can see in the photo above we saw lots of corn! We ate lots of corn! We also learned a lot about corn and many other vegetables. For me and I am sure many other guys, we love to learn the numbers. I am very logical and love to figure things out. I am very logical minded.
One of the things I learned from the guys there teaching us about Green Giant’s agriculture programs is their increased production abilities since they began farming. It really amazed me. Did you know in the 1950′s farmers could only produce 82 cases per acre.
Now what’s in a case? A case is 24 cans that are 11 ounces each. Wow right? That might seem like a lot, but with science management that includes special irrigation, soil management, finding the right species of corn out of over 3000 different varieties, and so many other practices that Green Giant help increase production. Since Green Giant has been around since 1903. That and their partnerships with universities all helped and continue to advance the science behind the vegetables on our plates.
By the 1970′s they were able to advance production to 150 cases per acre. With many more years of research and growing thousands of test crops, they advanced even more. In the 1990′s that production soared to 250 cases per acre. That’s not even the end of it. By 2010 the production of sweet corn blew out of the field to 350 cases per acre!
In the photo below you can see on the far right that little row is all it takes now to produce 24 cans (11 ounce each) of sweet corn.
In a 6 foot by 6 foot square of corn, Green Giant has been able to produce one whole case (24 cans) of delicious corn! The section in the middle is from the 1990′s and the one to the right was the amount it took to produce one case of corn. It was a great visual example of the advancement of crop production that Green Giant has perfected over the century!
So what else did I learn from our visit?
It’s so good raw in the field! I ate two whole cobs – even after a huge lunch we had earlier. It was soooo GOOD – More Green Giant stories to come!
Green Giant paid for our travel, but we were not paid to attend. All opinions are our own.
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Congrats to our winners listed below to the Rayovac Lithium Ion Power Pack giveaway! Make sure you check your emails that you used to enter for the instructions on how to claim your prize pack!
In a 6 foot by 6 foot square of corn, Green Giant has been able to produce one whole case (24 cans) of delicious corn! The section in the middle is from the 1990′s and the one to the right was the amount it took to produce one case of corn. It was a great visual example of the advancement of crop production that Green Giant has perfected over the century!
It’s so good raw in the field! I ate two whole cobs – even after a huge lunch we had earlier. It was soooo GOOD – More Green Giant stories to come!
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