Its amazing

how much money you can save when you concentrate on doing it. A big goal of mine is to pay down a lot of debt this year. I'll admit when I had a job I used my credit card more than I should with the intention that I can always pay it off next month when I decide I'm ready to stop living a luxurious lifestyle. FYI. This never happened until I was laid off..EEK. Now what? Well, we've figured out how much we need to spend each month on necessities and bills and what we have left. Being laid off did a lot of positive things for me.

1.) I started to save more $$ ( go figure.)
2.) I ate out less
3.) I shopped less
4.) I bought coffee shop drinks less ( The latte's I make at home cost us $.50 a piece vs. $3.95 Starbucks price tag)
5.) I started to cook at home more

A few unexpected expenses came up this month and luckily we've been frugal for the past few months and managed to continue to stick to our plan, even go out to dinner a few times/dates and still have some money left over until our next pay period.

So in my frugality I've been cooking at home more. Which I should do. I'm a great cook and this way I can control what goes into my food. We had 2 slices of leftover potpie so that became the main component for our lunch. Since its a veggie pot pie I felt like it needed some protein. I decided to experiment and make homeade quickcook baked beans. So the recipe is below. You might want to adjust it to your personal taste.

Raech's BBQ Beans in a Jiffy
Serves 2-4

• 1 can of beans ( I used white kidney beans), drained
• 1-2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
• A few nice squirts of BBQ Sauce ( p.s. I think baby ray's is the best)
• 2 Slices of Vegetarian Bacon
• A few nice squirts of Ketchup
• A little bit of vinegar depending on what type of bbq sauce you have

Mix all ingredients together in a little saucepan (so that the beans are sitting in enough sauce you might have to play with the amount of bbq/ketchup you add). I added the veggie bacon frozen and let it cook in with the sauce. I would probably recommend cooking the bacon separately so it gets that crispy flavor and add it to the sauce/bean mixture. Cook until the sauce/beans are hot and serve.

via we heart it
For me it was about convenience. I had all of these ingredients at home and I didn't need to make a trip to the store. I'm pretty sure that this was a lot cheaper than what I pay for at the store. I think a small can of bush's baked beans is around $1.99-2.50. I think I paid $.79 for the can of white kidney beans and the rest of the ingredients are things I already have. If you wanted to get fancy you could chop up onion and add that. In the past, I would have said "oh eff it. Lets just go somewhere for lunch"( and end up spending $30.00.) Don't get me wrong. I still love trying new restaurants in my area but its amazing how creative you can be when you're forced to use what you have. This ends up saving you more too because you're not throwing out spoiled food which I am hella guilty of doing.

Cheers and Happy Weekending!

Raech

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