Category: Food

Christmas, debt, Family, Food, Hair, money, pregnancy, Sewing, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Get out of debt

Hannah Lucio

When we first decided to kick our debt to the curb it wasn’t that easy. When you grow up not being taught how to manage your money. Not taught how bad credit cards are, isn’t a high credit score good after all? I was taught to get a credit card and get a credit score. I was not taught how to invest. Budget. What’s that?I just knew I needed a job to pay my bills and hope to one day….Idk I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I did not have a dream of being anything. I didn’t want to be a stay at home wife. I actually never wanted to get married and have kids, that is a whole different topic. No Cinderella dreams over here. Ha! It is kind of sad when you think about it.  And here I am, married for over 4 years, two kids and stay at home mom. Interesting how thing work out for the good 😍

I read this Article from Dave Ramsey’s website today and agree with it all. We have literally done it all. Or gone through it.

1. The doubt was enormous but once we made our budget and starting plowing through or debt i was optimistic. 

2. We really got gazelle intense! I was looking in every direction on how to save and pay off. 

3. I listened to Dave Ramsey Podcast, all three of them. Everyday. While I worked out. Cooked. Cleaned. I loved it. It is SO motivating! I was able to learn so much. It also helped me give money advice to others. Pretty darn cool. 

4. Oh my goodness did we sell. We sold so much our dogs thought we were moving. Haha! No joke. We had about 1/4 of the stuff we moved with and it felt AMAZING! We live a pretty simple life now and I never want to go back to the “old us”. 

5. Bargains. Yes, varage sale is huge in California so I bought used everything. I tried to get as much free stuff also. A lot of people just want to get rid of things and I loved it! Of course I sanitized everything but I never minded second hand stuff. 

6. Budgeting. Not the most desired thing for me but I started to love it. This is such an important step when getting debt free. Tell your money where to go, every penny of it. 

7. Cash. It gives me a bit of anxiety to use cash….at Costco. But once I started using cash it got easier. I treat it like a game, a challenging one. I also save the change for a rainy day. It’s amazing how fast change adds up. 

8. Family. Yes. My husband and I were on board from day one. It would have been impossible to do this without him. 

9. Work hard was an understatement. My husband, he is amazing! He worked SO much overtime. He would work hard around the house on weekend to save money also. I also worked my hardest to make homemade everything and fix stuff myself. Sometimes a second job is needed. Thankfully we are doing it without. 

10. When you are able to see how the progress is going it can be very motivating. I have it written on our dry erase board. 

11. The word no. Oh gosh, that’s a hard one for me. My husband, not so much. He is good at saying no. Learning how to say no was probably one of the hardest things ever!

12. Packing lunches and making our own coffee was easy for us. We were already doing that and not to save money but to be healthy. I love black coffee! Love! I would spend $10 a day at Starbucks (if I only drank black coffee). That’s $70 a week and $3,640 bucks a year! On just coffee!! How bout food. You eat out for each meal. 3x $10 (the average meal these days). That’s $30 a day, $210 a week and $10,920 a year! That’s not including alcohol, going out, fancy foods. Just plain old fast foods. Coffee and fast a year (on average) would be $14,560. Its way cheaper to make food at home and brew your own coffe with no added stuff. And healthier! By far. I am 20 lbs lighter than my wedding day because of this 😃 a win win situation. 

13. Spending time with people who respect your process is ideal. It makes it easier.

14. Creative should be our last name by now. It is an important piece to our puzzle. 

15. We stopped my husband 401k since mine didn’t exist due to me not working anymore. 

16. Prayer. Ah yes. This is one thing I do a lot. Sometimes scream, cry and just talk to God about it all. Faith is what has kept us chugging along in our journey. 

Once again, Dave Ramsey has put together such a great list. If you are thinking about getting your finances together. The time is now! It’s never to late to start. We started when I was 31 and my husband was 33. It’s not usually fun in the beginning but once the train starts to go it gets better.  Believe me. We will also teach our boys how to Manage money, that I do know. I do not want them to be clueless about their future. I highly recommend you check out Dave Ramsey, listen to his podcast and start today. 
Live debt free

Live simple

debt, Family, Food, money, prenatal, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Living simple

Hannah Lucio

I just watched the movie The Minimalists last night and it recharged me. Living simple is something I have been “into” for a very long time. I’m not into collecting stuff or buying stuff to show off. I never have been. I’ve tried it and it really doesn’t make me feel better. 

Here is our story.

When my husband and I got married we had a lot of stuff. Mainly him. I moved into his place and I got pregnant about a month after we got married. We then decided to go buy a house. Like a “normal” person. We had a lot of debt and wanted to get a mortgage to add to our debt. Like normal. We went through 22 offers for homes and finally on the 23rd they accepted. This house was in the booneys of Southern California. We loved it, for the most part. I mean, we had a little over an acre, a simple old house and it was cheap. When we moved we had to get the biggest uhaul, took several smaller trips with our leased vehicle. And filled up friends vehicles for them to bring to our house. That’s a lot of stuff!! When I sat down and did our “budget” and calculated how much debt and money we had I got really sad. My husband wanted me to stay home after giving birth and we simply were in way to much debt. When I calculated how much we needed for me to stay home we actually would have needed $1000 extra just to survive and that would have been without groceries😩 My husband brought up this guy (Dave Ramsey) he had heard about and I researched him. We found his Podcast and after listening to it one time I was hooked! We immediately got on board and we literally sold 90% of our stuff we moved in with. It was kind of hard considering we lived pretty far from the city, but it worked! We turned in our lease and got 2 used vehicle. That lease term was still over a year left and then 3 years of more payments to buy it! Yuck! We paid off our used vehicles in about 6 months or less. Both, yes!  We paid off SO much debt with our “stuff” we didn’t really need. We actually sold SO much stuff that our we became freer in our budget. We had $1000 extra every month! How bout them apples. Ha I made everything homemade- bread, tortillas, pizza, everything. We grew our veggies and had chickens for eggs. It was a very simple life. I loved it! No cable, just Netflix and internet. When we moved over here to Virginia we moved with one car and one of the smallest uhauls they have. It felt great! We do not have a lot of stuff and it still feels great! We recommitted in December to living on a minimal budget so we can move into a house with a yard in June. We want a yard for the kids and dogs. We do not want a huge house but just something with a yard. And not buying! Renting. We will not be ready to buy for a long time. We also just cancelled our cable again and I am very happy about that. I am going back to making things homemade and it’ll help with our budget immensely. I hope that if you are thinking about living simple that I can encourage you. I can try to help you out on how to get back to the basics. We don’t really need stuff to make us happy. Our world has taught us that more is better. If we chase the world things we will never be happy. I hope you find encouragement through our story and if you have questions feel free to ask! 

Here are some of Dave Ramsey quotes that I love:

Live happy

Live simple

Family, Food, Hair, pregnancy, prenatal, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized

Avocados

Hannah Lucio

I absolutely love avocados. I prefer avocados on my sandwiches over putting mayo or other spreads. I add them in Smoothies, the obvious mexican foods, and I even put them on pizza. It is such a super fruit that we all should be trying to eat. Some people might not want to eat them because they are fat but it’s a good kind of fat.

 

I found this online and thought it was funny-Hahaha

Since we do not live in California anymore the cost of avocados are a little higher over here on the east coast. I went to Costco and it was $7.99 for a bag! Since I did not want to waste money I made an effort to finish the bag before they went bad. And, to my surprise I succeeded! If you ever are looking for a way to add more nutrients and trash the butter and mayo I’d try switching to avocados. Of course everything is moderation is the best because too much fat isn’t great either. But, this is a great way to switch out the bad. I absolutely LOVE avocado!!!

 

Live healthy

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Christmas, Family, Food, pregnancy, St Pattys Day, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Milk Chocolate Fudge

Hannah Lucio

This is an amazing and easy fudge recipe that I just made yesterday. I made a different recipe last week and it was disgusting! That recipe called for baking chocolate and it was gross. This is going to be my go-to recipe when I want fudge. It is really creamy, smooth and melt in your mouth fudge. I always looked forward to the holidays when my mom would make fudge and now I can have a little taste of “home” on the East Coast. Here is the easy recipe, I hope you get to enjoy it as much as we do.

 

Ingredients:

2 1/2 Cups White Granulated Sugar

3/4 Cup Butter (softened, it makes it easier and faster to cook)

2/3 Cup Evaporated Milk

2 Cups Milk Chocolate Chips (I use Nestle Toll House=Yum!)

7 Ounce Jar Marshmallow Cream (I always use Kraft)

1 tsp Vanilla

Directions:

  1. Line a pan with parchment paper. Typically you would use a 9 inch square pan or in my moms case a cookie sheet for thinner fudge. I used my Cast Iron pan and it was perfect for me. It is a non-traditional shape for fudge.
  2. Use a heavy saucepan (I used my Pioneer Woman dutch oven, I’m trying to not cook with metal). Over high heat, combine; Sugar, butter and evaporated milk. Use a wooden spoon (the best for fudge) to stir slowly until butter melts. Make sure to scrape the sides of pan so you do not leave sugar crystals.
  3. Bring to a full rolling boil, stir constantly with your wooden spoon. Once it is at a full rolling boil turn the heat down to medium and cook it for 5 minutes. Make sure you stir constantly to prevent it from sticking to the bottom and to cook it evenly.
  4. Once mixture is done with the 5 minutes,  test to see if it is done. Fill a little glass cup with ice old water and drop a tsp of the very hot sugar mixture in it. If the sugar mixture can roll into a ball then it is done.
  5. Remove the mixture from the heat and add the chocolate chips. Stir until the chocolate chips are melted and mixture is smooth. Add the marshmallow cream an vanilla and mix really well until smooth. Pour into prepared pan right away.
  6. Let fudge cool down and try not to eat to much of it before then. Ha ha I really love warm fresh fudge so this is VERY hard for me!
  7. Once it is cooled take out of pan with the parchment paper, cute and serve. Make sure to really cover the fudge to prevent it from getting hard.

 

Live Happy

Live Simple

 

 

 

Christmas, Family, Food, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Mavericks favorite “Santa Cookies”-Recipe included

Hannah Lucio

Yesterday we made cookies for Santa, they are Mavericks favorite by far. They really are the best! Soft and chewy! And So incredibly delicious! We normally just put chocolate chips on them but maverick wanted to add his favorite candy. Maverick is a chocoholic! Chocolate and m&m’s are two of his favorites. Santa ate the cookies we left him but left a little bit on the plate so Maverick knew he ate his cookies and drank his milk. 

Best Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe ever

Ingredients: 

1 Cup Unsalted Butter (softened) 

1 Cup White Sugar

1 Cup Packed Brown Sugar

2 Eggs 

 2 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Cups All Purpose Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Plain Hot Coffee

1/2 tsp Salt

2 Cups Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips (we put in 1 Cup m&m’s and 1 Cup chocolate chips this time) 
Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Dissolve (in a little bowl) baking soda in the hot coffee. Set aside. 

Cream together; Butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth.

Beat in eggs, one at a time. 

Stir in vanilla

 Add baking soda and coffee mixture to the above ingredients and mix. 

Add; flour and salt and mix together. 

Add chocolate chips and mix together, do not over mix. 

Drop cookie batter on parchment paper with cookie scoop.

Bake for 12 minutes and remove. Leave on pan for 2 minutes and then put on cookie sheet to finish cooling. 

Try not to eat them all at once! I hope you get to enjoy these “Santa cookies” as much as we all did! 
Merry Christmas!!! 
Live happy

Live simple. 

Family, Food, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Yummy Taco Seasoned Potatoes 

Hannah Lucio

This is one of our family favorite. It is a meatless meal but super easy to mix it up and put meat on it. This is actually a pretty healthy meal and everyone loves it. And it is really inexpensive.


Ingredients: 

3-4 large Potatoes

3 Tbps Taco Seasoning

1-2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 can Black Beans

1 Avocado 
Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Cut potatoes into little chunks. It doesn’t really matter which shape. I mix it up regularly . 

Put the Potatoes into a bowl and add the olive oil. Mix until all coated. 

Add the Taco seasoning and mix until all coated. 

Put into a greased baking pan, this time I used our cast iron skillet. Put in the oven for 20 minutes and test to see if the Potatoes are soft/cooked. They normally take 40 minutes total but I do not like to over cook them. After the 20 minute mark I will check on them about every 10 minutes. 

Once they are done, put them into a bowl or plate. Add black beans and top with avocado. 


I make many variations of this. You can add cooked ground turkey, shredded cheese and salsa. Making the Potatoes is just the base to so many different meals. 
I hope you get to enjoy them as much as we do!

Live healthy 

Live simple 

Family, Food, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Pulled Pork and Coleslaw Amazingness

Hannah Lucio

I am trying to make different dishes, dips, snacks for football this year. This last Sunday was one of my favorite foods yet! I found one of the easiest recipes for pulled pork and a Chick Fil A coleslaw recipe. They were both so yummy and I really hope you try these recipes out. You will not be disappointed 🙂

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

pulled-pork

Ingredients:

2 lb Pork Loin Roast

12 oz Root Beer (I used A&W)

18 oz Barbecue sauce (I used Weber brand)

Hawaiian Rolls or Hamburger buns

Instructions:

Place Pork in slow cooker.

Pour Root beer and barbecue sauce over pork

Cover and Cook on low heat for 6 hours or until it shreds easily with two forks.

Remove pork and shred it with two forks

Return shredded pork to slow cooker

Continue heating on low for an additional 30 minutes

Put pork in a strainer to remove excess liquid

Serve on Hawaiian rolls or hamburger buns with coleslaw

pulled-pork-on-hawaiian-rolls

Ah-Mazing!

 

Chick Fil A Coleslaw

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Mayonnaise

2 tsp White Vinegar

2 Tbsp Sugar

1/8 tsp Dry Mustard

1/8 tsp Salt

1 bag (14 oz) shredded cole slaw mix

 

  1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together; mayo, vinegar, sugar, dry mustard and salt until smooth
  2.  Add in shredded Cole slaw mix and fold over with spatula until completely coated. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or over night. I let mine sit over night and it was amazing.

 

Enjoy!!!

 

 

Live Happy

Live simple

.

 

 

breastfeeding, Family, Food, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized, Women

Family favorite Healthy smoothie

Hannah Lucio

I have been trying to figure out how to add more veggies and fruits into our family diet. We don’t really have the drive to just eat our veggies. Ha ha.I have tried cooking different ways but it wasn’t enough. And you can only eat so many salads. So I started making smoothies for our family. I wanted to share what I “sneak” into them to make them really healthy for the whole family.

First I put frozen strawberries and blueberries (these bags last us one week) in the blender, add apple juice (we drink almost 2 bottles of Costco Apple juice in one week. In and out of the smoothie) and let it sit for a few minutes to thaw them out a little. I add 3 heaping Tbsp’s of ground flaxseed ( they recommend you add it slow, start out with a TBSP and work your way up), 1 avocado and at least 3 cups of greens (this bag from Costco lasts us one week). Blend it all up and voila, yummy healthy full of greens smoothie. The best part about this is that you can get your greens, flaxseed and avocado goodness all in one and it tastes amazing! I know that it sounds like a whole lot of sugar but natural sugars are ok for us. It is the soda, junk food and white sugars that are the worst for our bodies. Try it out 😀

 

Update:I am down 7 lbs YAY!! Enjoy!!

Live healthy

Live simple

Christmas, Family, Food, pregnancy, Stay at Home Mom, Uncategorized

Most delicious Zucchini Pumpkin Bread Ever

Hannah Lucio

I have been trying to make this new recipe I found for a week now. Ha ha kids…. I was finally able to make it and I am so incredibly happy with this recipe. I have made a few pumpkin bread recipes in the past and this is the most moist and delicious one yet! If you have been searching for a pumpkin bread recipe, make this one! I promise you will not be disappointed. And no, you cannot taste the zucchini in it.  That is one of the best parts. It does have a lot of sugar and I will be practicing to reduce the sugar content and if I am successful at it I will post it 🙂 I love to experiment with recipes and try to make them healthier when possible. Hope you get to make it and enjoy it as much as I do!

Ingredients:

3 eggs, lightly beaten

2 cups sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin (15 oz)

1 cup butter, melted

1 TBSP vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 cup shredded zucchini (I used the smallest side of the grater)

1 cup chopped walnuts (I did not add nuts)

 

Directions:

In a bowl, combine eggs and sugar. Add pumpkin, butter and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients; gradually add to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Stir in zucchini and nuts. Pour into two greased and floured 9-in x 5-in loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until bread test done. Cool in pans 10 minutes. Remove to a wire rack.

Enjoy! Try not to eat it all at once 🙂

 

This recipe had great reviews and you can check out the recipe here.

 

 

Live happy

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Family, Food, Uncategorized, Women

Updated: My favorite dish soap

Hannah Lucio

I have been using this Palmolive dish soap for a few months now and haven’t been completely happy with it. It has done the job good but not what I wanted or needed. Since I wash all the dishes by hand and not in the dishwasher I really need a good product.  I think I have used the dishwasher 3 times since we got married almost 4 years ago now. Ha! I saw something about the Seventh Generation dish soap and decided to try it. I am not fully convinced on a lot of “natural” products out there. Well, I am hooked now! This soap is amazing! It cleans amazingly and I don’t need to use a ton of soap. If you are looking for a great product that does the job it’s supposed to do I really recommend this dish soap. 

It also smells really good. Which is a bonus 🙂

 

 

Update: I have stopped using the new dish soap due to it wrecking my hands! I returned to using Palmolive and my hands have improved 99%.

 
Live healthy

Live simple