Hot dog salad

After school snack hack
Cost $2

So everyone knows kids will eat hot dogs for any meal, but you get tired of plain old doggies. If you're paranoid like me you cut the dogs in half down the center so the round pieces can't choke up your wee one. When they were littler I cut it into four strips. And that's how hot dog salad came to me.

First, do that. Cut into four strips and then slice into tiny chunks. Add a spoon full of mayo or Miracle Whip and relish, a squirt of mustard and ketchup, stir. You can serve with crackers or on bread. I recommend only feeding your kids with it, as our palates are much more discriminate.



Not awful waffles

Hack Type: Recipe

Cost: 3$
Feeds: 5
You will need:

Cake mix, eggs, syrup

I daresay, not only are these not awful, they're downright tasty. Now the hubs and I would not need syrup, perhaps adding peanut butter and banana instead, but you know kids. Groan. Definitely not an everyday deal-io, as we do try to involve protein in the morning meal especially. Milks got to be the vitamin source on waffle days.

Ignoring the box recipe add three eggs and 1 and 1/4 cups water. ok. That's pretty much it. Of course you can have yourself fun with sprinkles to the mix. Which I buy at the dollar store. Also nice to know is the spray oil available at the Dollar Tree lasts as long as other spray oil available elsewhere,
And they have a coconut variety.

You can see I have a bubble waffler, it was a wedding gift I think? But they do taste better than other waffles ;). This batch is ready for the freezer where I can pop them, like other brands, in the toaster on a school day.

Lazy Crazy Spaghetti

Recipe

Feeds about 8
Cost: $8


24 oz. spaghetti noodles

1 24 oz. can sauce
1 24 oz. can diced or stewed tomatoes
1 12 oz. jar red peppers and onions
1 12 oz. jar mushrooms
1 16 oz. can olives
1-2   package frozen sausage (cut breakfast links, NOT maple, but don't be afraid to try hot).

Throw it all in the crock pot, season with basil, garlic, onion powder, a dash of pepper. You can also buy 'Italian seasoning' at the dollar store, but I don't use this. Cook at high for two hours, or low about four hours.
Vegetarian; use zucchini, extra mushrooms, or even black beans instead of sausage.
This makes plenty of food, we are five and have as much left as we ate.
A little cheat I use on everything: I thicken with mash potato flakes;

yes, even this.
Serve over freshly boiled noodles.

Salsa soup

Type: Recipe hack

Ingredients:
2-3 pork steaks
1 can black beans
1 can corn
1 jar of salsa
1 soy milk or packet (1/4 cup)  milk powder (I use powder)
1 bag tri-colored tortilla strips

Cost: under $8 (the vegetables are usually below one dollar)
Feeds: 4-5

What's really great about this is it will be the 'temp' you prefer in your salsa mild (me), hot (hubby), or you can even go green. I should have worn safety goggles, because as I was stirring hot (two ways) salsa it popped up in my eye. Nice. Eyedrops. Tears. Cold pack (yes, from the Dollar Tree). sigh.
Trim fat and cut pork. Throw everything but the chips in a crock pot. Cook four hours or so on high. Add salt and pepper to taste, most flavor is already in the salsa jar! Sprinkle chips on top, the chips really bring it to the next level.
The thing here too is that this can be even less expensive. These ingredients are at your dollar store, but I stock up when beans, veggies and diced tomatoes go down to .50 a can in Smith's truckload sales) I buy meat when on sale. It is good with cheese sprinkled, but I do not recommend dollar store cheese. Sometimes they will get a brand you recognize and that is fine. Cheese freezes. Fake cheese is worse for constipation (yes, I said it) than normal cheese.

Vegetarian:
Omit pork, add zucchini. Cook on high for an hour or so. The cost goes down by 1-2 dollars. The taste is still marvelous.

Organize this!

Type: Organization

Omygoodness! When I read this 'hack' I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it myself. So, yeah, all ideas do not originate in my mind, but, I'll share them anyway. The trick is to organize lids with a dish rack. Hello? How did I not think of this? The little grooves are great to keep them from banging into each other. After going from largest to smallest the leftover space fits the very smallest. I love how much space it freed up, and how I don't have to curse and yell at inanimate objects when I go to put the pots away. Brilliant. Those are actually one egg pans hanging out the back in the silverware bin.

Bonus idea:
Use a small towel rack to hold that most often used lid. Seriously 90% of the lid use is this one.

Letters, layouts, labels!

I just want to expand on yesterdays idea for those mailing labels.
If you have caught the craze like my friends and I of pocket letters*, you should probably just make a sheet of other addresses you use a lot. Another thought I had was to make a sheet of terms, images, quotes to slip on those card sized pieces. You can use these in your letters, cards, pages, whatever! Do them in color, or color them yourself!
Pocket letter, you ask? It's a cross between scrapping, card collecting, and keeping in touch. Take a sheet of baseball card holders and fill them with pretty papers, ATC (artists trading cards), pics. Add little mail-able gifties like tea, stickers, book marks. Add a folded letter in one pocket. Fold in three quarters and mail in a business envelope. It will take at least two stamps.
So here's my example, you can use color font or add color after printing, as I will:

Lifehack; medicines list

mailing label medicine list

Store: Dollar Tree

Product: Polaroid premium white mailing labels
Go to rmsint.com, choose avery dennison

Tired of endlessly answering the section of current medications? Do you forget and have to call in just one more? Do you write it down before Dr. appointments only to lose it in your bag? This hack is for you!

Type in all medicines, if room add allergies. Copy and paste to each rectangle section. When you reach this question on many forms place sticker. No worries about misspelling, misreading, or bad penmanship!

The good thing is you can alter the doc and reprint if changes occur, or leave room to add in later; you can see I have no room left, but I would probably white out and add in if a change occurs, because I am super cheap.

Cost is actually about .13 per sheet, plus ink.

Keep these in your purse or cut a few out for our wallet; use one in your address book or laminate a copy for emergency workers when necessary. Cover sticky and write something on the backside, including allergies, before laminating.