Muffin Master!

This weekend I was asked to make 100 muffins and cupcakes for our local winter mountain bike event (remember- S works at the bike shop).

I made 8 dozen in one day! I didn't mind because it rained all day Saturday anyways.

Menu

1. Banana Applesauce Muffins
   
2. Banana Applesauce Muffins
   
3. Yogurt Muffins
   
4. Peanut Butter Muffins
5. Blueberry Muffins
   
6. Vanilla Cupcakes
7. Vanilla with mini chocolate chip Cupcakes (now named Dalmatian Cupcakes)
   
8. *My Famous* Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

All supplies cost under $20 including new all-pupose flour (10lbs), whole wheat flour (5lbs), and sugar (5lbs). I did not buy any new spices or extracts. I have over half of the all purpose flour and a whole lot of the whole wheat sugar left! The local bike club is paying me back for the ingredients and so I am going to give them the $20 receipt! I get to keep the left over flours and I didn't charge them for my stuff or time!

Things I learned:

Mini Chocolate Chips are AMAZING! (Now that I think about it I didn't charge the club for these because I was not planning on using them- oh well, still "free" flour!). I used them in the second batch of vanilla cupcakes for something more exciting than plain and they were a hit! One of my friend named them Dalmatian and I think the name will stick! Oh! The reason I bought the mini ones- they were one sale! (Cha-Ching!).

Even though I named them *My Famous* Pumpkin Chocolate Chip, they are the ones that go the fastest and people keep coming back for. Although they are the strangest sounding, I should always make 2 dozen!

Yogurt Muffins have possiblity- maybe I should have experimented first. I wanted to make these because they sounded amazingly moist. I only had plain yogurt so that its what I used, the recipie claimed that pineapples yogurt is very good. I think I will have to try it!

Yes, Bananas that are not quite super ripe can be helped along with a teaspoon of vinigar- it makes the muffins not so sweet. Bummer! My favorite new recipe I posted a while ago didn't go over so well because they were super bland. I guess the ripeness adds sweetness (where as the vinegar defiantly negates that) they also add moisture. For the two dozen that I made I also cut the moisture by lowering margarine to 1/2 cup from 1/3 cup and subbed 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat. Bummer- now S and I have about 20 muffins we have to finish off for breakfasts. I added jelly to mine today!

Yeah! I accomplished blueberry muffins! I am so proud of myself! I went ahead and used frozen blueberries and I even coated them in flour so they wouldn't sink. They didn't! But I should have rinsed them first, they did leave blue streaks in my batter and muffins but they were still appetizing looking and people ate them!

I might work on posting recipes soon- but we will just have to see how much of my amazing-ness I want to share!

Navagating the Airline Industry

The cruise thing is getting kinda crazy. Thanks grandpa for paying for the thing but I am still having to miss an entire week of school, get myself to port, need a new swimsuit (thankfully its not a "fancy" cruise), passport and a whole host of other random expenditures.

In early January I started looking for flights from Tulsa to Houston. My other grandfather is retired from American Airlines so we often use his passes to fly standby- but trying to catch a boat is a pretty important event. Because I normally fly American- flying Southwest (which I have only done once) feels like I am being loaded onto a slave ship. The whole get a group number, stand in line, pick your own seat is very uncivilized to me- but unfortunately its a great deal cheaper.

While looking at dates I discoverd that the day I get off the boat is my annual convention in Dallas, where my grandparents live. They will be driving to port so I am just going to come home with them and they are going to take me to my convention and then S can drive down and pick me up, or my grandfather said he would take me half way. (Saturday is a triathlon in Dallas and I am considering doing it- but that seems like a lot of stress for one week)

During my search for tickets it seemed that Southwest was running a special for specific cities and where I was flying was one of them. I only needed a one way ticket and the website said $79! Wo hoo! With taxes and security fees it came out to $88. I was pretty proud of myself and my mom was so happy she offered to pay for the flight!

For some reason this morning I decided to check and see what the rates were. $65! Yes, that is right, $14 dollars cheaper! With taxes and fees it comes to $74- still $14 dollars cheaper than what I bought about 3 weeks ago.

Now I understand economics, and supply and demand and all the ways that Southwest uses price as a driver to fill their planes but I still cant help but feel I got the shaft!

I booked under the cheapest category (duh!) and read the rules. Apparently I can cancel my flight and receive 100% in credit for flights at a later date. Does this mean I can cancel- get my $88 back and then book the same flight again? You have to figure if they are this smart then you probably can't do it and it has to do with "later fight" thing.

The only good thing is I didn't pay for the ticket- but I still fell like I flushed $14 of my mom's money down the toilet. Bummer!

Cheap, Fast and Easy!

I am sitting between classes thinking about how hungry I am decided to post my ultimate favorite easy and cheap recipe.

Broccoli Cheesy Ricey Casserole

1 10oz. bag of frozen cut broccoli
3 tablespoons water
2 cups uncooked brown rice
1 3/4 cup water
1 can condensed soup (cream of celery, cream of mushroom, reduced sodium cream of mushroom)
2+ cups of shredded cheddar cheese

Optional:
1/2 an onion chopped
1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon oil

Cook rice in water according to package directions. While rice is cooking put frozen broccoli in large plastic, glass or ceramic mixing bowl with 3 tablespoons water and microwave on high for 5-6 min until completely thawed. Let rice and broccoli cool. If I feel like this is when I heat the oil and brown the garlic and onion. This gives the casserole a fuller taste, but it really good even without. Once broccoli and rice are cool combine with soup, onions (if you have em), and shredded cheese. Save a little cheese for sprinkling on the top. I have a great round caserol dish that I stuff the mixture in and then cover with foil. I am sure that a 9x 13 glass pan would work well also. Bake at 425* for 20 covered then remove the foil and cook for 5 more min.

I am constantly just playing with the perportions of everything. There is honestly no way you can mess this us! More cheese, less broccoli, more or less rice- it always works!

S and I eat this with MorningStar Mock Chick'n Nuggets. I am pretty sure that is what we are having tonight!

Cheap Cooking!

My mother and I have been discussing ways to save money and put it towards our funds for the family cruise we are going on in April. (Grandfather paid for all of us for he and Grandmothers 50th anniversary, but we still have to get ourselves to port, pay for on board activities and in my case- A new swimsuit!). We have known about the cruise for whole year- and being the debt and money aware person I am have been making sure I would have the funds necessary. My mother on the other hand- is a different story! S unfortunately cannot go due to school, but being for my Grandparents 50th, I can't not go. (and I am one of only 2 granddaughters out of 14 grandkids- and frankly they like me best!). One day I might write a whole post about my crazy travel plans for that week!

Well one way S and I keep costs low is- not eating meat. I love being a vegetarian and it really helps me in my athletic endeavors. An added bonus is it can be very cheap! So fallows is the recipe I adapted from one I found on Vegweb.com to utilize and use up some things we had lying around (2 browning bananas and apples sauce I have 8 days to finish!)

My New Favorite: Banana-Applesauce Super Moist Muffins!

• 2 VERY ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
  
• 1 1/2 all-purpose flower
• 1/3 cup margarine
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (or to taste)

Since I totally altered this recipe I will tell you how I assembled in case that made a difference.

Put 2 banannas in bottom of mixing bowl. Mash with fork. Add margarine and also mash with fork to lumpy consistency. Add applesauce, brown sugar (recipe called for plain, so just use what you have), flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Due to the ripeness of my bananas I had plenty of moisture to make a good batter, but if for some reason it was to dry just add more applesauce! Spoon into muffin pans (paper lined for ease, greased and flowered for cheap). Bake at 375* for 20-25 min (I did 22 and they were perfect!).

These turned out really well but I think I could reduce the amount of margarine without effecting the moistness to much. I also added the cinnamon and think that it could use more, just a taste thing. The best part is how easy they were! I made them in the morning and it only took me 5 or so min to assemble and get in the oven before my shower.

S loved these! He ate 3 for breakfast with butter. I ate them plan and hot for breakfast, then plane and cold for an afternoon snack! So fast and so easy! It is such a great way to use up browning bananas!

For some reason I am liking baking way to much right now- so look for more recipes soon!

Sometimes You Have to SPEND Money (For Motivation)

There are lots of things I don't want to do right now. One of them would be clean, and the other would be to bathe my dogs. So I went shopping!

Lenens 'n Things is having their clearance sale right now so after I went and deposited my student loan refund in the bank I decided to pop on in.

One thing I have been meaning to by for a long time is bed risers (you know the little blocks that make your bed taller). I missed my chance at the bening of the school year when they were marked down from $15 to $10 but I thought I would just go in and see. Sure enough! They are on sale again! I knew that S wouldn't mind if I got them because we had talked about them for so long.

The next thing to look at was a hand held shower head so that I could wash C-dog easier. I went over to that section and the cheapest one was $20 on sale for $15, but it was pretty cool. I had seen a supper striped down type at Big Lots for just $10, so I kept shopping. While wondering around the store I happened to notice one of their circulars just lying on a shelf! I was one of the first people in the store for the morning so I helped myself to it. With this new development I decided that I could get the shower thing also, so I went back and got it!

I also found these cute little cupcake holders called Cup-A-Cake on clearance from $3 to $1.5 each. They came in clear and pink so I bought 4 clear and 2 pink. I they they would be cute for Valentine's Day (yeah for thinking ahead!).

When I got home the first thing I did was raise the bed. I was so excited that I changed the sheets, made the bed, and even put our pajamas (yes, clean) and stuffed animals (I have a Godiva Bear I got for Valentine's Day 2 years ago and S has a UglyDoll named Bop 'n Beep) on each of our sides of the bed. But for some reason this was not enough. I brought in the vacuum and did all the carpet, the corners, the cobwebs around the smoke detector that have been bugging me for months and even the window seals!

Next I went to our guest bathroom (with an shower-tub which easier than our stall shower for washing dogs) and attempted to change the shower heads. Unfortunately S had taken his tools to work and I was out of luck on that department. But in my search for tools I found a phillips screwdriver and did a few chores I had been needing one for! I am so proud of myself and S was very excited when he saw the bedroom. Now I just need to wrangle and adjustable wrench and C-Dog will be getting bathed quite often!

So I spent about $35 in total. Not bad for a little motivation!

Weekly Accomplishments

This week I actually accomplished things! I am so proud of myself! On Thursday I went grocery shopping with my Sister in-law and bought a bunch of staples that I have been needing to stock up on. I had a list, but didn't take any coupons. Honestly, nothing really had coupons and then only impulses were 2 tubs of sprinkles for $0.60 each. I also stayed withing my $50 weekly budget and S is on board to help me keep on track! Yeah!

S and I spent all day Friday cleaning our entire house! I was amazing! My in-laws still had our dogs from our Christmas trip and were bringing them back Friday night so we used the dog-free time to super clean! S was so great- he asked me where things when, put a hook in the wall for my bike to hang up and even organized the entertainment center and vacuumed the living room. To make things even better he made the bed with out me asking for most of the last few days!

C-dog actuality got a bath! S bathed her Friday night when she came home. It seems that she may have brought fleas home from her grandma's house (yeah). So step one was bathing her- no I have to begin the vacuum and spray process of every single cloth area of our house. Unfortunately this is not the first time we have had this problem!

Well I must now get ready for our New Years Eve trip! Yeah for packing and cleaning!

Happy New Years!!!

Our 2008 Goals

Well I guess it is really more of a 2021 goal.

S and I have been talking a lot about money. He likes to make fun of my obsession with personal finance blogs and how I talk about what everyone did this week and how that has inspired me to do things in my own life. We have been working on starting out savings and preparing for the onslaught of school loan repayments to start early in 2009. It also looks like we are going to need probably buy a new car for me around the same time. My Rodeo is not doing well and we don’t thing it will last another year.

I have been trying to spur on motivation for savings and future planning and thing I have finally done it. I pulled out the magic word- “Millionaire”! Why this word sparks a light in everyone I am not sure, but it did work well for me! I figure that if I get us to start early enough we will be able to prepare for many things that catch others off guard in life (babies, medical bills, college expenses, etc.).

So I pulled out the GMAC calculator and started paling with numbers. S is 26 years old this year. I thought that I might motivate him by trying and finding an age for us to shoot for. Well, we started with him being 40- that’s 14 years away (In 2021). Sometime last month we started calculating our estimated expenses for after we graduate (may) and move (hopefully to Denver) sometime next summer. We came up with a base of $2,500. I am sure that we could make that number much smaller- but that is what we are thinking based on what we spend now, and the things we don’t pay for now, such as rent.

I started with a conservative 4.50% high yield interest rate started working the numbers to make it hit as close to $1,000,000. I hit the number of $4,266 a month (starting with $1,000 initial investment). Well, added together that is about $6,766 a month. Multiplied by 12 months that becomes over $81,000 a year combined income for S and I. A little ambitious I would say for starting out, but maybe realistic in 10 years of so.

Then I started playing more with the numbers and started using a very generous 10% annual rate of return. Using the calculator I figured that we need to save $2,735 a month, compounded quarterly (starting with $1,000). That is a little more comfortable. That makes monthly income requirement $5,235, and annual combined income of around $62,000. That is more like a stretch goal for two just out of college kids.

I am very excited to start 2008 and continue with my newly started $500 a month savings goal (account already set up) for our move and expenses starting this summer!