Do you plan meals for your family? I know many women that create menu plans for their household – some plan out weekly menu plans, others go as far as to organize a monthly menu plan. They all speak of the benefits of planning meals in advance, which include easier grocery shopping, saving money, and eating healthier.

I have tried in the past to create a weekly dinner menu and used my Google calendar to lay out each day’s meal. When I planned our family’s meals a week or two at a time, I found a few things to be true:

• Grocery shopping was easier and faster. I was able to quickly make a shopping list based on the meals we had planned and could better stick to grocery shopping every two weeks to coincide with pay days. Very rarely did we have to make grocery store runs in the middle of the week, which often times ended up going over budget.
• No more “What’s for dinner?” debates. Not only did I avoid the daily struggle of thinking about dinner, which can sometimes be a point of frustration for many women, but my husband was also informed well ahead of time. He could easily look at the printed calendar on our fridge and know what the menu was for that day.
• Dinner responsibilities became easier to share. My husband can cook just fine and actually cooks certain meats better than I do. But, he’s the first to admit that when it comes to thinking of side dishes to complete the meal, he needs help. Having the dinner menu planned in advance resulted in him initiating the cooking process sometimes because he didn’t have to think about what to make, he already knew.
• We ate better. Not all of our meals were super fresh or healthy, but they were all home-made. Regardless of whether or not we took shortcuts by using pre-packaged foods, we were still able to control what we put into our meals, how much of it, and in the end, this created better meals for us than if we were to order out.
• We saved money. It’s true that just by planning a dinner menu, we were able to control our spending and many times saved on the food budget. There was much less eating out, more buying in bulk, and less grocery store trips. It was easier to keep an eye on the money we spent on food.

As I write this out, I can’t think of why we ever stopped planning our meals. I definitely plan to work on getting back into it and will hopefully start this weekend by creating a dinner menu for next week. The benefits of meal planning are sure to help our household’s balance and peace of mind.

Do you meal plan? If so, share with us in the comments about how you plan your family’s meals. Do you create a weekly dinner menu, two weeks at a time, or a monthly meal plan? How often do you grocery shop? What other benefits not mentioned have you found from meal planning?

More Meal Planning Ideas

• Sample Weekly Dinner Menu (my own dinner ideas that work in our house)
• Menu Planning Basics
• Spring Monthly Menu Plan
• Sample Menu Plan from Frugal Upstate
• Monthly Menus from Once a Month Mom

This is a sponsored post.

This is the last in a series of posts regarding the new Dyson DC35 Digital Slim vacuum. In my previous posts, I shared information about the features of the Dyson Digital Slim, and a behind the scenes look into the Dyson labs to see how Dyson creates some of their vacuums. This time, we were challenged to use the Dyson DC35 in as many different ways as we could think of.

Since you can use the Dyson Digital Slim as either a handheld vacuum or as an upright, you can easily use it to “sweep” the kitchen, pick up quick messes, and vacuum an entire room (or a couple). It’s also good for vacuuming against edges, such as under the kitchen cabinets and against baseboards. Another use is for reaching up high, such as for blinds, since it has a long wand that attaches to the handheld portion. But, something that came in real handy for us was the ability to use it to clean up messes in the car. Because it’s cordless and relatively small, it works good for cleaning up the crumbs, dirt, and miscellaneous things the floor of the car collects from going in and out.

We’re currently keeping the battery for the Dyson DC35 charged at all times so that we can have it readily available to use around the house or in the car. With baby boy having learned how to roll successfully both ways, he’s now a boy on the move around our family room floor. The Dyson is perfect for keeping the floor clean and quickly tidying it up before putting him down to have fun.

What areas in your house do you think the Dyson Digital Slim would help you with the most?

Disclosure:  As a member of the Walmart Moms program, I was compensated for this post. As always, all opinions are my own.

This is a sponsored post.

My family and I have been trying out the new Dyson DC35 Digital Slim vacuum for a few weeks. I can honestly say that there are some things we love about it and at least one thing we think could be improved upon. I’ll get into the details in a bit.

First, I’d like to share with you the video above from a Dyson design engineer, which takes you behind the scenes at the Dyson labs to learn more about all that goes into a Dyson machine, including the Dyson DC35 vacuum. I like that they put a lot of thought into the development of their vacuums and was amazed to learn that they grow their own dust mites in order to test their products! Watch and learn more.

When the Dyson Digital Slim was provided to us for review, we were told that it is the most powerful cordless vacuum, and that the detachable wand it comes with makes it easy to transition to a handheld vacuum. That part is definitely true. You can very easily use it as a handheld vacuum or use it as an upright when you attach the wand; switching from one to the other is effortless.

One of the things we think makes this vacuum a bit hard to work with is the fact that you have to press a trigger-like button in order to use it. That is, there is no standard on-off switch that you can use to power the vacuum for the length of time that you need it. Because it relies on you to press the trigger, after using the Digital Slim for more than 10 minutes, your hand is tired and hurting. Even my husband, who’s stronger than I am, had the same issue and his wrist began to hurt.

Other than that, we definitely do like the ease of use it provides, the flexibility of going from handheld to upright, and the swivel motion, which allows you to get into odd corners and under furniture more easily. It is great for a quick clean and especially useful for the kitchen area that often gets dirty. It sure beats having to sweep every night and gets the kitchen floor clean a lot faster than a broom!

Here are some more details of the Dyson Digital Slim, as provided to us:

• Powered by the Dyson digital motor, the vacuum has anti-static carbon fiber brushes to remove fine dust particles from hard floors.
• Dyson’s patented Root Cyclone™ technology – condensed to fit into the machine – spins dust and dirt out of the air using centrifugal force, so there’s no loss of suction.
• A dual power mode allows up to 15 minutes of constant suction. For stubborn dirt, a button can trigger 6 minutes of higher suction.
• A 26 inch, lightweight aluminum wand attaches directly to the machine to convert it from a handheld to a slim vacuum cleaner.

Do you think you would find the ability to switch from a handheld vacuum to an upright useful?

Disclosure:  As a member of the Walmart Moms program, I was compensated for this post. As always, all opinions are my own.

This is a sponsored post.

We all struggle with cleaning, especially with finding time to balance our housework, family, work and other life responsibilities. So, of course, anything that helps make any of these things easier is much appreciated, isn’t it? It seems as busy parents, we are always seeking tools to help us accomplish our daily tasks. It’s a good thing many brands like Dyson develop such tools.

In the coming weeks, I will be sharing more with you about the new Dyson DC35 Digital Slim vacuum that was provided to us for review. For now, you can watch the video above from a Dyson design engineer, which shows some of the features of the Dyson DC35 vacuum. Then, tell us, how do you think this vacuum could make cleaning a little easier for you?

Disclosure:  As a member of the Walmart Moms program, I was compensated for this post. As always, all opinions are my own.

This post is part of a paid campaign.

Do you remember how old you were when your mother began teaching you how to clean? Or did she? I can’t really remember exactly how old I was when I began to learn. I do, however, have memories of being 8 or 9 years old and coming home after school to a list of chores that included tasks such as sweeping, vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom.

It used to irk me to no end that I was expected to help with such chores, while my 16 year old brother was not. By that age we were no longer living in Puerto Rico, and being influenced by my new peers and their way of thinking, I would sometimes question why I had to clean and he did not. “Porque tú tienes que aprender como limpiar y cocinar para que cuando tengas tu propia casa y marido sepas mantenerla.” (Because you need to learn how to clean and cook so that when you have your own home and husband, you’ll know how to maintain it.) That was the answer I would receive from my mother and yes, I am very much aware how antiquated it was. Even then, it seemed odd to me.

Yet, for all the complaining I did and the old-fashioned thinking my mom had at the time, I now find myself saying things like, “I’m glad my mom taught me how to properly clean and cook.” The husband appreciates it too and will often boast to his friends and family when they compare notes on “the wives.”

So, it seems, that learning cleaning rituals and tips from your mother, is a big part of many Latinas’ childhood, as is true for me. So much so, that a recent study conducted by Garcia Research, found that “93% of Latinas helped their mothers clean as a child with sweeping, mopping and washing dishes.” That’s a lot of little girls complaining about chores, much like I did.

But, even more interesting were some other findings of this study that resonated with me. It’s almost as if they came to my house and observed my own cleaning habits.

• More than half of Latinas prefer certain elements of old-fashioned cleaning, such as washing dishes by hand instead of dishwasher (83 percent), mopping the floors with a regular mop or by hand (73 percent). Most preferred this old fashioned approach because it’s what they are used to and plus it was “a better clean.”

Yes! I almost always wash dishes by hand. It’s only been in the past few months that we’ve begun to use the dishwasher more. My mother doesn’t even use hers at all and uses it instead for storage. I’m not sure what the other 27% of people are doing for their floors if they’re not mopping with a regular mop. I always tell my husband, “This is how my mom taught me. It’s the only way I know how to do it and it works!” So, yeah. It seems the majority of Latinas are in agreement with me regarding cleaning rituals we learned from our mamis.

• Music is an integral part of the cleaning routine with Spanish pop being the favorite playlist among 53 percent.
  

Ok, this one is a little different for me. While music is a big part of my cleaning routine – I always blast the radio to get me going while I clean – I don’t listen to Spanish pop. Well, I guess it actually depends on what this study considers to be Spanish pop. I tend to listen to more upbeat music, including merengue, salsa, and English dance music, in order to keep my energy going. But, still. The fact that research confirms that most of us clean while listening to music amazes me.

It’s pretty amazing to see that so many Latinas have so much in common – even down to something as simple as cleaning. The study also found that “43% of Latinas report their significant others as helping with household cleaning – a surprising find, considering the long-standing myth that cleaning is a role predominantly performed by women.” How great is that? The myths are being debunked, even for Latino households. At first I thought that this finding was reflective of the newer generation of Latinas, such as myself. However, the participants in the study were Spanish-dominant (59%), Hispanic females between 25 to 54 years old living in the U.S.

Because the holiday season is upon us and many of us are preparing our homes for family gatherings and guests, it’s a high season for cleaning. Why not have some fun with it and join Clorox in a Holiday celebration? Clorox is currently hosting the Holiday Health Twitter Sweepstakes, where they’ll be giving away a weekly prize of a $50 American Express gift card for 5 weeks, plus a grand prize of a $100 American Express gift card at the end of the sweepstakes. To enter, just tweet how you’re helping to keep your family healthier during the holiday season, using the hashtag #cloroxfiestas. You can tweet in either English or Spanish. Official sweepstakes rules can be found both in English and Spanish. Good luck if you enter!

What cleaning ritual did you learn from your mom, aunt, grandmother, etc.? Will you teach the same traditions/rituals to your children?

Disclosure: This post was written in conjunction with a paid campaign on behalf of The Clorox Company, but all experiences, thoughts, and opinions are original.

On Sunday, I co-hosted the Orlando Hebrew National Better-Than-A-Picnic Picnic. The night before, the husband and I were explaining to baby girl that we would be going to the picnic and that we were going to be helping people. We told her that we’d be collecting items that would be given to people who needed them. This led to a resurfacing of a previous conversation concerning people who don’t have as much as we do. It also led to many questions/comments from her:

• “Why do some people not have houses?”
• “But, if they sleep on the streets…that’s dangerous!”
• “When did we not have a house?”

After answering all her questions and feeling good that she was actually understanding this concept, she proceeded to break my heart…in a good way.

“Maybe one day…daddy can go work more and get even more money and we can build them a house!”

Oh baby girl, how I wish we could. That sure would be great.

After the initial laughter between my husband and I about her sending him to do more work, I sat there in the car on our way home and had to really fight back the tears. I was so proud of my girl and that she not only understood, but that she also wanted to help.

During the picnic itself, it was bittersweet to see local homeless families at the event. While it was nice to see the kids enjoying themselves and having fun with other kids attending, including my daughter, it was really sad to know that at the end of the day, they wouldn’t have a home to go to.

One day, though, perhaps as a community, we’ll be able to fulfill my baby girl’s hopes of being able to “build them a house” and help everyone.

For another story about my girl and how sweet she’s acting these days, head over to read about her Big Sister Love.

Disclosure: I was compensated for my time and work in co-hosting the Hebrew National Better-Than-A-Picnic Picnic.

It seems like everyday I hear a woman talking about struggling to balance her life. You know that I am a believer of trying to find balance, at least whatever balance means to you. But, it’s a reality that something always gives.

Some days your work may suffer, other days perhaps your me-time suffers, and I’m sure a lot of days, it’s the house that suffers. That’s why we try to come up with a cleaning schedule and attempt to clean while working from home. It’s all in an effort to juggle our many roles and get a handle on our super mom expectations.

And, believe me, I know all about those expectations. I expect that I should be able to take care of my daughter, my house, and my husband. Taking care of myself was not something I was taught early on – it wasn’t until I was older that this became of importance. As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up hearing things like, “You have to learn how to cook and clean, because when you get older and get married, you’ll need to take care of your house, husband, and children.”

Now, I try very hard not to say things like that to my daughter. I don’t want her to learn how to cook and clean so that she can take care of others. I want her to learn so she can take care of herself. Instead I tell her: “We have to clean the house because we don’t want to live in a dirty house, do we? We want to take care of our things and be proud of where we live.” Pride. Orgullo.

In a way, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Outside of cleaning because we need our space to be clean for sanitary reasons, we also clean because we want to be proud of our space. Doesn’t it make you feel so much better when you look around your house and see it’s clean and in order? The days there’s a lot of clutter around, it’s almost like my brain feels cluttered right along with it. The minute it’s clean again, I feel a sense of calm.

I think pride plays a big role in how we take care of our house. At least, I find this is true for myself and many other women I know. Somos orgullosas de nuestros hogares. We are proud of our homes.

Do you find that pride plays a role in your home? Share with me any cleaning-related stories – either from your own childhood or from your adult life.

***Want to teach your kids to help clean? Check out this list of chores for preschoolers.

This post is an entry into the Mi Hogar Mi Orgullo contest.

As a working mother, I need shortcuts wherever I can get them.

Dinner is often a challenge for us busy moms, and this holds true for me as well.

I work 8 hours a day outside the home, which leaves a small window in the evening for me to pick up baby girl, spend some time with her (don’t forget time with the husband also!), and cook dinner. Some days I wish dinner was just sitting there waiting for me; I mean, I get hungry too!

So, I take shortcuts. I try my best to plan ahead, both by planning a monthly menu and by cooking ahead if I can.

This week has been a particularly good week for us when it comes to dinner. I’ve actually stuck with our planned menu and have not ordered out.

Sample One Week Dinner Menu

Now, I don’t pretend that this is the healthiest menu, but we are eating and the food is home-made. I’m not spending money on take-out and it’s manageable for our busy schedule. It works.

1. Sunday: Turkey Chili – I cooked this in my new slow cooker and didn’t have to do much with it once it was started, which allowed for me to work on other things around the house.
2. Monday: Ground Beef & White Rice – I was off on Monday for the MLK holiday, so I was able to cook from scratch. The ground beef is cooked with tomato sauce/paste (think of picadillo) and I made extra meat for later in the week. The white rice I cooked in a rice cooker, but you could easily take your own shortcut by using Minute Rice. And if you wanted to be extra healthy, you could substitute with brown rice. (There’s shortcuts for brown rice too!)
3. Tuesday: Leftovers - I had a dental appointment after work on Tuesday, so I got home later than normal. Luckily, we had plenty of chili and some white rice leftover. Voila! Dinner served.
4. Wednesday: Tacos with Knorr Rice Sides pack – I used the extra ground beef I cooked on Monday to make tacos. All I had to do was chop up some lettuce and tomatoes, warm up the tortillas, and assemble. I made a pack of Knorr Rice Sides Chicken as a side dish.
5. Thursday: Chicken Fettucine Alfredo – Sounds fancy, huh? This dish is *full* of shortcuts. I buy a bag of chicken cutlets, which don’t really require defrosting. I use a box of Fettucine pasta and a can of Ragu Classic Alfredo sauce. (What, you thought I made my own?) Since, the chicken doesn’t need defrosting, I just put it in the pan as soon as I get home. I usually add a can of peas & carrots to the chicken when I add the alfredo sauce. Serve over the fettucine.
6. Friday: Hot dogs & Fries – Fridays are our slack days. So, we normally eat something very easy. This week, we’ll be making some hot dogs and baking some fries in the oven.
7. Saturday: Pork Chops with Yellow Rice – Since it’s Saturday, I should theoretically have more time to cook. You can cook pork chops however you’d like: in the oven, on the stove or on the grill. Yellow rice is one of my favorites. It’s easy to cook and you can add whatever you like to it, making for many delicious variations. I’ll be making rice with corn this week, but sometimes I use beans or other vegetables. Shortcuts for yellow rice can be found via Goya, if you’d like.

You can see that the recurring theme is to use shortcuts to create quick and easy meals for your family.

How do you manage your weekly dinner menu as a busy mom?

[top photo source]

Picadillo Image via Wikipedia

Calendar Image via SugarcubeDesign

Early last month, I posed the question, “Can Preschoolers Help Clean?” and provided a list of chores for preschoolers to do around the house. Many of you agreed that yes, preschoolers can indeed help clean around the house and even provided a few additional suggestions based on what your kids help with.

One of the original suggestions I had listed was to have your young child help with folding clothes. As I thought about it more, I realized that my daughter actually helps with pretty much all aspects of doing the laundry. If we involve her, she can be of help from beginning to end when it’s laundry day. In case you hadn’t thought about it, let me share the ways your young children can be of more help with this task.

Photo by FL4Y from Flickr

How your Toddler or Preschooler can Help with the Laundry

• Sort clothes – Your child can easily take the clothes out of the hamper and help you properly create the necessary piles. On our laundry day, what we do is start a few piles on our floor, tell her what each pile is for (most are recognizable by color), and have her sort her own clothes.
• Load washer – We put her step stool in front of the washing machine, bring a pile over, and have her help throw the clothes into the washer. It’s so simple, but she loves doing it.
• Load dryer – Similarly, when it’s time to change out the loads, she stands next to the dryer and pushes in the clothes as one of us takes them out of the washing machine. Sometimes, she takes the dryer sheet and throws it in too before we start up the dryer.
  • Once the clothes are dry, she also helps us take them out of the dryer and throw them on the couch.
• Fold clothes – Though the clothes may not end up folded perfectly, your preschooler can help fold his/her clothes or even some towels. Their clothes are small, so they’re perfect for little hands to fold. They may be able to hep fold other clothes, depending on the size, but generally, their own clothes work best.
• Hang up clothes – Grab a stack of hangers, and lay out a few shirts on the couch. Your preschooler can easily slide a hanger into each shirt, and make a new pile of ready to hang clothes. This also works best with their own clothes and the smaller hangers.

Now that you know how your preschooler can help out with the laundry, let’s think about why this is actually a good thing for not only them, but you as well.

Photo by Anna Maria Horner from Flickr

Why Helping with the Laundry is Good for your Preschooler

I’m sure there are many more reasons why helping with the laundry is beneficial to young children, but here is a short list of the benefits I’ve seen:

• Color recognition
• Recognizing patterns
• Categorization
• Coordination
• Feeling helpful
• Teamwork
• Teaches responsibility and pride in taking care of what we own

Photo by Ruth from Flickr

How Letting your Preschooler Help with the Laundry Helps You

Getting some help with the housework is always a good thing, right? But, particularly if you work from home or are striving to create more work-life balance in your days, then involving your young children in daily chores will help. You may think that if you just do the chores yourself, you’ll be able to get them done faster. However, how often do you find yourself interrupted when doing one task because your son or daughter wants some type of attention? Do you really get it done very fast?

Keeping them involved will allow you to have conversations with your kids while getting things done. It lessens the feeling of stress because you’re spending time with them while doing housework. They will feel like a “big helper” and you may find that it helps the overall mood in the house.

Do your kids currently help with the laundry? Do you feel it’s a learning experience for them?

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Purex. All opinions are 100% mine.

Hello, hello. It is that time of the week again. Viernes! Friday! And, it’s definitely TGIF for me. I’m looking forward to having some fun family time this weekend, though I was grateful to return to a “normal” routine this past week as I had no travel.

For today’s Viernes Social, I am sharing a new video. And let me tell you…this vlogging thing is interesting. But, I’m trying. Hopefully I’ll start to feel more comfortable with it soon enough.

Anyway, this video is about the Purex 3-in-1 Laundry Sheet. As you may know, I’ve been a Purex Insider for a few months now and have been trying out the sheets on my laundry. Take a look at the video below to hear all about my experience in using the laundry sheets. And ladies, you’ll appreciate the story about my husband and the grocery shopping.

If you want to try out the sheet for yourself, you can get a free sample by visiting the Purex blog. Oh, and check out this other video from Purex; it made me laugh.

Have you used the Purex laundry sheets? Do you feel they save you time and/or money? If you haven’t tried them, maybe you can share with us your pet peeve about doing laundry.