Hello! Welcome to our little home here at Savor and Savvy! Right here is where we offer you simple, easy, and yummy recipes with a meal prep focus. I show you all the tips and tricks I have used over the years to keep my family from eating out all the time. As a former working-out-of-the-home mom turned stay-at-home mom, I understand the pressures of working and raising a family full time.
Our lives are crazy busy, just like yours…I used to joke that I would run two shifts in my house. The first shift was when we got up until 3pm – getting everyone to work and school and getting all of the chores done. The second shift was 3pm-10pm when we needed to get from school to multiple activities and somehow get dinner on the table or pick it up on the run. Yes, many meals were eaten before swim practice in the car.
This crazy schedule led me to start meal prepping on the weekends and freezing as many meals as I could – just to get through the week. So, when I explain about how to meal prep meals, it is because that is what we had to do if we wanted home cooked meals – and we only had ONE kiddo to run around. I’m giving you all the tips and tricks to keep you from eating out every night as well.
Recipe Creation Background
Food and recipes have been a part of my life since I was a very young girl. I started out learning to make bread and butter pickles with my mom and Gram and making jam from freshly picked fruit every summer. Being raised with humble beginnings has led me to learning to cut corners and offer money and time saving tips to my readers. I spent several summers working with my mom who worked on a federal grant to provide nutrition education to kids at parks during summer break. That just would not happen in today’s age, but back then, we carted the week’s creation to help the kids learn to make healthy food and snacks at home to a different park five days a week.
My first realization that an “oops” in the kitchen can be a new recipe was when I went to make a homemade cake when I was a young teenager and accidentally put potato flakes into the cake instead of dried milk. The cake was AMAZING and I didn’t know I made the error until my mom pointed out we didn’t have dried milk. Ooops!! A lot of cooking and baking intimidation ended after that day.
I continued to share the love of the kitchen with my son, Spencer when he was a toddler. I pulled his high chair into the kitchen and we would “cook” together. When he was just over a year old, he sat on the counter and learned to scoop flour and sugar into the mixing bowl. That progressed until he was 8th and 9th grade when he moved to cooking one meal a week for the family. One year he even had to budget, plan, shop and cook the meal. If I can teach a boy to cook, I can teach you!
Our Family
We are a fun family of three! Jason and I grew up in the same town and went to middle school and high school together. We remained tight through college and married shortly after he graduated from the Coast Guard Academy with a degree in Business, a Masters in Business Administration from The Citadel and is a Certified Public Accountant. It took me a bit longer to complete my degree but finally finished at Limestone College with a degree in Business and received my graduate degree from Webster University in Human Resources. I spent several years working in Human Resources in banking and hotels before I chose to stay home when Spencer was four.
Being in the military and coming from humble backgrounds, money was tight and I had multiple student loans to pay down. That took a long time and we have worked hard to stay out of debt ever since. No, it wasn’t easy and there were times that we slipped. It didn’t always work perfectly, but we found that when we got kicked down, we fought back harder. Aggressive tightening of the finances and finding opportunities to get ahead helped significantly. I share frugality tips and tricks that were successful for us and will help you too!
Our family loves to hike, visit museums, ride bikes, play games and travel. My husband and I are learning to be empty nesters this year as Spencer went off to college overseas in 2019. Wish us luck!