Once a Month Cooking

One way some people save time and money on their meal cooking is Once a Month Cooking (OAMC). The premise is to spend a day cooking your meals for most of the month. Then each day you only need to take the itmes from the freezer and finish cooking. With OAMC you save the time of cleaning up from meal preparation each night. Also, you may also save money by buying ingredients in bulk.


Even if you don't want to spend an entire day cooking there are other ways to implement freezer cooking. When you are making items such as lasagna, meatloaf, etc make one or two extra and put them into the freezer so they are ready to use some other time.

Since I usually only cook for myself, when I make lasagna, a hotdish or something like that I freeze the extras in individual serving portions to use in the future.

Once a Month Mom puts together a freezer menu each month. For July they have put together a variety of menus for different diets. Menus for July includes meals for Traditional meals, Whole Foods diet, Gluten free Dairy free, Diet menu, Vegetarian, Baby food (6-9 month) and a Grilling Mini menu.

Each menu includes printable recipe cards, a grocery list, instructions and printable labels with the name of the dish and serving instructions for preparing the dish.

Even if you don't want to follow the plan for the entire month, it may be beneficial to look at the menus and try a few of the meals.

Personal finances relating to the Circus

With the Shrine Circus coming to town, I thought of some similarities between the circus and personal finances. Just as it takes training and practice to do the circus acts and train the animals it takes education and practice to budget and handle your finances.

It is important for trapeze artists to have a safety net in case of a fall and with your personal finances it is important to have an emergency fund as a safety net.

Bills may seem scary like the animals but once you get them tamed and under control they aren’t as scary.

When shopping it is important to determine the difference between wants and needs. Like the trinkets you can find at the circus, decide if it something you really want and will use or if it will soon start gathering dust in the closet. That doesn’t mean you can’t buy anything, but to think about what you are buying. Also, consider if it something you really want or if you could use the money to buy something you want more.

Also, as clowns can hide behind their makeup and costumes, some people think fancy clothes, cars and other things will make their lives better. But if you go into debt for these items, the stress of the debt may make your life more difficult.

The El Zagal Shrine Circus will be at The FargoDome this weekend Friday thru Sunday.

March 23, 2012 7:00 PM 6:00 PM
March 24, 2012 10:00 AM 9:00 AM
March 24, 2012 2:00 PM 1:00 PM
March 24, 2012 6:00 PM 5:00 PM
March 25, 2012 12:00 PM 11:00 AM
March 25, 2012 4:00 PM 3:00 PM

Tickets in advance are $11.00 for General Admission and $14.00 for Reserved Tickets. On the Day of the show General Admission tickets are $13.00 and Reserved tickets are $16.00.

General Admission tickets are available at the FargoDome, Hornbachers, Sun-Mart, CashWise, StopNGo Stores and State Bank & Trust Locations. Reserved tickets are only available at the FargoDome.