Saving Money, Template Challenge, Digistrations

I am hosting the "Love of My Life" Contest on Tangie Baxter Designs Loft. It starts Tuesday, March 18. Go here for PNG files and here for PSD files for the contest template. All lo's using my template must be posted no later than March 24 at High Noon EST HERE! Please post your gallery link in the comments section of the Contest Blog Post...OKAY!!! Winner will receive a $5.00 GC to use at Tangies store, where I wonder if they will spend it on the new Digistrations??? Theme of the Contest is "Love Of My Life" as it is my anniversary. Married 19 years! Wahoo! I don't care what you have as the "Love of Your Life", but you must scrap about it, and it must be obvious what it is from your lo! You must use my template. You are not required to use Tangie's products, but you are certainly may! Since the Love of My Life, Lou, is also a fan of my scrapbooking, he and I will choose the winner together! Because that is how we are. Enjoy!

You may download my template for your personal use and do not have to use it to participate in the contest. You must give me credit if you do use it, as in "template designed by Leigh Bossinger". If you do use it and post somewhere, I'd love to see what you've done!!! (Do not share my template. Do not use it for any illegal purposes.)
Okay, we all now that we are getting hit hard at the pump and the grocery store. We're having to squeeze out every cent we can to maintain our style of living or even cut back just to make ends meet. It's hard on everyone these days.

My ds is seventeen and eats me out of house and home. Snacks are a big expense item at the grocery store. It is so aggravating. And you get such a tiny bit for alot of money. I have a few secrets up my sleeve. One thing I do is I make my own Chex mix. I can make as big a batch as I want, and it surely is alot cheaper than buying their snack mix brand at the store. Plus there are different varieties. Currently ds's fav is the spicy chex mix. I buy generic chex mix cereals i.e. Walmart brand, which further cuts on the cost, generic butter, and store brand Worcestershire sauce. Recipe here: Chex Hot & Spicy I also use cheerios instead of pretzels in mine. Frankly, you can put in it what you want, like if you like oyster crackers instead of all that cereal or cheerios. So mix it up a bit. And I don't put nuts in. Too expensive right now!

I also look for ways to keep us nutritionally sound while still being able to save money. I found that we were really enjoying the Fiber One granola bars, but with only six or 8 of them coming in a box, if I eat one and dd eats one and ds eats one, then there are only about 2 days worth in a box. Not very economical if you think about it. So I started looking for recipes online. I found this one so far to start with. It is easy as it uses granola cereal you already have. It is 3 ingredients. Now I am not wild about the corn syrup, but you can substitute a sugar mix. Just do a google search for corn syrup substitute. However, this makes a huge recipe, and I found that a 9 x 13 pan was too small or it makes 2 batches. Just fyi! Recipe here: Peanut Butter Granola Bars. I will post more as I try them. I have found some completely from scratch that I will probably try, too.

Tangie Baxter is one talented lady. If you haven't figured that out by now, you will when you see this next innovative idea she has come up with. They are called Digistrations. I find them to be so innovative and am going to be using them to change my blog header as I have had this one for a while. Check 'em out here. Just do a search in the gallery for Digistrations. I'm serious, this is the coolest thing I have seen in a while, paper or digi! And it's new and original. I know I'm on Tangie's CT, but I'm completely FO' RE-AL here! These are just so ORIGINAL and creative. They are blowing my mind. If you decide to get some, please tell Tangie I sent ya, just because it's nice to know where people find out about her stuff. I don't get anything extra for you mentioning my name so you don't have to if you don't want to!