The Key to Simple & Budget Friendly Meal Plans with Mandy Klentz

Summary

Frugal Friends Podcast: The Key to Simple & Budget-Friendly Meal Plans with Mandy Klentz

Host/Authors: Jen Smith & Jill Sirianni
Guest: Mandy Klentz
Release Date: November 12, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of the Frugal Friends Podcast, hosts Jen Smith and Jill Sirianni welcome Mandy Klentz, a seasoned budget-friendly meal planning expert from her platform, Plandy Mandy. The discussion centers around creating simple and cost-effective meal plans that help listeners save money, reduce food waste, and maintain a balanced diet.

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Guest Background

Mandy Klentz shares her journey into budget-friendly meal planning, highlighting her personal struggles and motivations:

"I got into budget cooking because I was a really young mom of three kids. My husband and I were kind of drowning financially, and I had to start getting creative to help our finances without making more money."
— Mandy Klentz [06:10]

Mandy emphasizes the importance of taking control of food expenses as a manageable aspect of budgeting, especially when other areas like housing and transportation may be less flexible.

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Meal Planning Process

Mandy outlines her six-step approach to effective budget-friendly meal planning:

1. Audit Spending:
   "Figure out what you are spending by tracking your expenses over the last week or month."
   — Mandy Klentz [10:05]

2. Identify Areas for Improvement:
   Assess where overspending occurs and identify unnecessary purchases.

3. Set Goals:
   Establish specific objectives, such as eliminating certain snacks by opting for homemade alternatives.

4. Develop Systems:
   Implement systems like a breakfast freezer stock and cook once, eat twice strategies to streamline meal preparation.

5. Write Down the Meal Plan:
   Plan meals in detail for a 7 to 10-day stretch, specifying exact ingredients to avoid impulse buying.

6. Verified Grocery List:
   Create a grocery list directly from the meal plan to ensure only necessary items are purchased.

"When you're planning an individual day, I have a detailed breakfast. I really write down we're gonna have blueberry bagels with sausage links and Greek yogurt."
— Mandy Klentz [10:15]

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Starting Small

For beginners intimidated by the complexity of detailed meal planning, Mandy advises starting with manageable steps:

"Start small and tackle one thing at a time. For example, eliminate one day a week from eating out and plan all meals for that day."
— Mandy Klentz [15:48]

This incremental approach helps build confidence and sustainable habits without overwhelming new planners.

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Cooking Systems and Efficiency

Mandy emphasizes the importance of making cooking time-efficient:

"Make your time in the kitchen count for multiple meals. For instance, when making blueberry pancakes, prepare extra batches and freeze them for future use."
— Mandy Klentz [21:57]

By batch-preparing and utilizing freezer stocks, Mandy reduces daily cooking time and ensures quick access to nutritious meals.

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Combining Meal Planning and Budgeting

Mandy discusses integrating meal planning with budgeting to maximize savings:

"I've learned how to make really basic things from ingredients rather than buying pre-made items. This not only saves money but also time in meal preparation."
— Mandy Klentz [24:35]

She advocates for using similar ingredients across multiple meals to minimize waste and lower grocery expenses.

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Finding Inspiration for Meals

To keep meal plans varied and exciting, Mandy suggests leveraging online resources and creative combinations:

"Pinterest can be a valuable tool for finding new meal ideas. Use keyword searches like 'chicken pasta recipe' to discover diverse and budget-friendly options."
— Mandy Klentz [31:43]

Additionally, Mandy shares her technique of mixing flavors, such as creating a tortellini Mac and cheese, to introduce variety without increasing costs.

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Repurposing Ingredients

Reducing food waste is a key component of Mandy's strategy:

"Stick to similar proteins and use side dishes that can complement multiple meals throughout the week."
— Mandy Klentz [36:21]

By repurposing ingredients and planning versatile side dishes, Mandy ensures that all purchased items are utilized efficiently, thereby saving money and resources.

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Lightning Round Highlights

In the lightning round, Mandy shares her meal plan highlights for the week, showcasing creative and budget-friendly recipes:

• Mummy Calzone:
  A themed twist on calzones, perfect for holiday celebrations.

  "Mummy calzone was just a calzone wrapped to look like a mummy."
  — Mandy Klentz [48:29]

• Crock Pot Carnitas Burritos:
  Simple, three-ingredient beef carnitas prepared conveniently in a slow cooker.

  "Three ingredient carnitas in the crock pot. Shred it up, make burritos with it. Delicious."
  — Mandy Klentz [48:29]

• Pumpkin Cobbler:
  A crowd-pleasing dessert made economically to feed a large group.

  "I made all of the side dishes for $70, including the pumpkin cobbler with vanilla ice cream."
  — Mandy Klentz [40:43]

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Conclusion

Mandy Klentz provides invaluable insights into creating budget-friendly meal plans that are both simple and effective. Her practical tips on starting small, developing efficient cooking systems, and repurposing ingredients offer listeners actionable strategies to control their food spending without sacrificing quality or variety.

Listeners interested in further resources can connect with Mandy on Instagram at @plandyMandy or explore her fully built meal plans available on Etsy, where she offers a 30% discount using the code FRUGALFRIENDS30.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Start small and tackle one thing at a time."
  — Mandy Klentz [15:48]

• "Make your time in the kitchen count for multiple meals."
  — Mandy Klentz [21:57]

• "Stick to similar proteins and use side dishes that can complement multiple meals."
  — Mandy Klentz [36:21]

• "Pinterest can be a valuable tool for finding new meal ideas."
  — Mandy Klentz [31:43]

---

Resources Mentioned:

• Plandy Mandy on Instagram: @plandyMandy
• Meal Plans on Etsy: Search "Plandy Mandy"
• Discount Code: FRUGALFRIENDS30

---

This episode is a treasure trove for anyone looking to streamline their meal planning process, save money on groceries, and reduce food waste. Mandy Klentz's expertise provides a roadmap to achieving frugality in the kitchen while maintaining delicious and nutritious meals for the entire family.

Transcript

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Or dsw.com Episode458 the key to simple and Budget Friendly Meal Plans with Mandy.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Clench welcome to the Frugal Friends Podcast where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity and live a richer life.

[Jen and Jill]

Here are your hosts, Jen and Jill.

[Mandy Clance]

Welcome to the Frugal Friends Podcast. My name is Jen. My name is Jill and today we are talking about a listener favorite topic which is meal planning, specifically budget friendly with our friend Plandy Mandy. Mandy Clence.

[Jen and Jill]

It's such a good one. It's not just a listener favorite, it's our favorite thing to talk about food. And we really rapid fired a lot of questions at Mandy. Questions we were not prepared to ask, just decided to ask in the moment and she rapid fired back at us some really great stuff. So I'm glad we're here. I'm glad you're here. But first, this episode is brought to you by by shaking things up. Who doesn't love a fresh take a little plot twist, a new perspective. It's what we need when we're in a food slump. And a little inspiration couldn't hurt in other parts of our lives as well. Which is why we've written the friend letter. We send it to your inbox for free three days a week with alerts of free food, ways to save money, and helpful perspectives on money. So get Shook. Get the friend letter frugalfriendspodcast.com I rebranded it.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

You're welcome.

[Jen and Jill]

Get Shook.

[Mandy Clance]

I love that for you. All right, so if you are interested in lowering your grocery bill then we have a ton of great episodes for you. We've got episode 416, simplified meal planning which we talk about low ingredient meal plans. Episode 433 Tips for Grocery Shopping on a Budget where we talk about specifically being in the store grocery shopping or on the app grocery shopping. And then episode 354, meal planning for people who hate to Cook, which is similar to us. So we talk about some tips to to get that make a sustain make a meal plan that's sustainable that you will stick to. That's really the highlight of that episode is sticking to so Mandy Cleanse. She is a stay at home mom turned frugal grocery shopping expert and her platform Plandy Mandy. She shares budgeting tips, systems and recipes every day. She's Passionate about saving money and helping other people learn the skills that she has. And we had a really great interview with her, so I'm excited to share it with you.

[Jen and Jill]

Let's get into it.

[DSW Announcer]

Mandy, welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We are so excited to have you here.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Jen and Jill]

Food is my favorite thing to talk about, and we have to eat it every day. Food decisions happen daily. So if we can help ourselves make better spending decisions, just better food decisions, I'm here for it. So I'm so excited to have you.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yes.

[Jen and Jill]

Yes.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Food is life. It's like you can't really avoid it, especially when it comes to your budget. Yes.

[DSW Announcer]

All right, so give us a little background. What led you to being passionate about budget friendly meal planning?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, absolutely. I would love to say that it was something that I just enjoyed doing, like, oh, I love being in the kitchen. But in all honesty, I got into budget cooking because I was a really young mom of three kids. I had all three of my kids by the time I was 24, and my husband and I were kind of drowning financially. And I was in this position where I couldn't really work outside of the home because I wasn't going to make more than what childcare was going to cost. And so I kind of had to start getting creative and thinking, how can I help our finances without actually making more money? And what felt in my control at that time was cooking and dropping our grocery budget. And so that's really. That was about 10 years ago. That's kind of where it all started. And I didn't grow up cooking or learning how to cook. And so over the last decade, it's just kind of been me figuring it out as I go and getting a little bit better each week.

[Jen and Jill]

Yeah, that's amazing that you were able to identify that at such a young age. We talk about the big three on this podcast of the things that take up the majority of our budget, being housing, transportation, and food costs, and food being the one thing that we can have a little bit more control over in the day to day. Certainly it's important to make good housing and transportation decisions, but these are decisions that are. That we're being faced with regularly. So to be able to identify that at such a young age, that this is an area where I can make some big shifts and really see it take root in our finances and see it benefit our family is really amazing. And that you did that 10 years ago, I imagine that's still helpful for you now, seeing the rising Costs of food now, like, you're already prepared for it?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Oh, absolutely. My husband and I talk often that, of course, we would never want to go back to that phase where we were struggling so much, but it changed the rest of our life with how we deal with our money. I think anyone who's gone through a phase of being broke, quote unquote, it really makes you more responsible when you grow in the future and have more income to deal with. You're not broke anymore, but you kind of still understand the responsibility factor because you never want to go back.

[Jen and Jill]

Yeah.

[DSW Announcer]

Yeah. Do you have any funny stories from when you first started trying to get your budget, your grocery budget together? Like, big mistake you made or something that you, like, overcame that you look back now on? And it was maybe devastating then, but it's funny now.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. I mean, my mind immediately goes to chili relleno casserole, which I'm sure makes no sense, but when I was first learning how to cook, you know, you don't have the disposable income to mess up is really what it comes down to. So I was cooking because we needed the money, but if I messed up, the stakes felt really high. And this one night, I made chili relleno casserole, and I thought it was going to be so great. And I brought it out to my husband, and I was kind of looking at it like, that's not what that's supposed to look like. And we both kind of had this moment where we're like, well, we're eating this because we don't have money to go get anything else. But also, this definitely was not what it was supposed to be, I think just little moments like that where you really don't have the wiggle room. And so if you do mess up along the way, it's like, I guess we're eating, like, eggy soup with some peppers in it tonight. I'm so sorry.

[DSW Announcer]

Figure out, like, what went wrong or are you just, like, the recipe was just not it?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I. I have been so intimidated since that day. I've never even tried that recipe again. It was. Yeah, it was a nailed it moment. Like the.

[Jen and Jill]

Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Got it. So you're about 10 years into now having meal planned in a budget friendly kind of way. I'm curious at this point, can you walk us through your typical meal planning process from start to finish? What does it look like for you?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, absolutely. So whenever I talk about this, I always tell people, even as someone who's done it for 10 years, I really try and stay in the cycle of being a beginner. Because I think that no matter how good you get at meal planning, you kind of become competitive with yourself and you can always save a little bit more. So I actually have six steps to effective budget. And this is kind of how they go. And I'll. I'll summarize because it could be a whole lesson. But the first thing that I always start with is an audit. So basically figuring out what I. What am I spending? And especially if you're new at budgeting, this is such an important step, just tracking what you've actually spent in the last week or the last month so you can see where your improvement or your decline is. After I kind of figure out where I'm at, the second thing I do is I figure out areas of improvement. So where could I improve? Where did I overspend? Or what did I buy that wasn't necessary? Or what's a habit that's not helping my budget. Then I set goals where I want to change my budget for that following week. Something that I could improve, like maybe I'm going to eliminate a snack that I'm buying with a homemade recipe instead, and little things like that. And then I use my systems. So I have developed a bunch of systems over the last 10 years that really just helped me stick to the meal plan. Because I think it's really easy to write stuff down. It's a hundred times harder to actually follow through with it, especially if you're busy, especially if you have little kids. Um, so I have some systems that I use, like a breakfast freezer stock, a cook once, eat twice meal plan type of thing. Um, so I just figure out what I'm gonna use for that week to help me stick to the plan. And then I actually write down my meal plan. So when I'm meal planning, I plan for a seven to 10 day stretch at a time, really, because I'm trying to stay out of the grocery store. The more often you go into the grocery store, the more money you're spending. It's just inevitable that we're going to walk down a hall or an aisle and just be, oh, I need mayo, or I need this, and that looks good. So I try and stay out of the grocery store as much as I can just to reduce that impulse buying. So I plan seven to 10 days at a time, and I actually write down a recipe for every meal of the day. So when I'm planning an individual day, I have a detailed breakfast. Not anything extravagant, but just exactly what we're eating for that meal. I don't do any kind of rough planning like, oh, we have cereal or we have bagels. I really write down we're gonna have blueberry bagels with sausage links and Greek yogurt. We're gonna have waffles with fresh fruit and yogurt. Yogurt's a big thing in my house apparently. So I write that down for each meal of the day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. So what I end up having is a seven to stretch of three meals a day so that when I go grocery shopping, I can do a verified grocery list, which just means I'm actually in my kitchen. I do a lot of grocery shopping on apps. So I'm actually in my kitchen looking at my specific meals and only buying what I actually need from the store. So that's kind of the planning process. And when I go to implement it, it just gives me a lot of flexibility because I have all of those meals for that seven to 10 day stretch. And if I have to move them around or shift things a little bit, I'm to do that really easily because it's so in depth.

[DSW Announcer]

Yeah, I love the in depth. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. And I'll go with snacks too. I personally need that. Jill's like the opposite. She's kind of, you know the options and pick from. I need that structure or I'll forget to eat and then I'll get hungry and then I'll need something bigger than what I had planned and then like it, things go awry. So yes, I love that, that point about really going in depth and making the specific. And obviously you can deviate from the plan, but if you don't have a plan to start with, you're like setting yourself up for failure.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. And I think a lot of times where people fail with meal planning is they it's not in depth enough. And then they hit what you're talking about. Right. Like almost a defeated mindset. Because they're like, darn, now I'm hungry. I'm going to opt for stuff that I wouldn't have if I would have just had a plan to go with. So I'm going to go through the drive through. By the way, like, the average American family is spending about 10% of their annual income eating out. And I think a lot of that simply comes from having to find a plan B because they didn't really have the plan A to begin with. And so they're kind of in this like flying by the seat of their pants mode. And we just don't make the best financial decisions when we're in that mindset.

[Jen and Jill]

Yeah, yeah. I think you're accurate in saying it could sound as though you have to be a very specific personality type to be able to do this. Like a type a person who is very detail oriented. But I appreciate that what you're describing is that if we don't do it that way and we just write down, oh, we're gonna have like burritos, but we don't know whether or not we have the tortillas or the beans or the rice or the sals, then we end up either not having it and scrapping the meal and then going out to eat, or if it's not written down and we've not done the inventory of what's in our pantries, we're then rebuying things that we don't need because we weren't so detailed with it. But to that point, I'm curious if you've run into this at all for people who might claim, like, I can't be that detailed, I'm not that detailed of a person. Are there ways that we could kind of get over that hump?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I always tell people this really is a skill. It is. At the end of the day, it's a skill that you kind of have to learn and get a little bit better with each month. But for beginners, I say start small. I think when we're talking about grocery budgets, it's everybody's dream to go 0 to 100, and all of a sudden they're saving hundreds of dollars a month compared to the last month. I just don't think it's realistic because there are a lot of things that go into meal planning. Like, as someone who's done it for 10 years, I kind of have a system for every meal of the day and snacks, and that didn't happen overnight. So my biggest suggestion is to start small and tackle one thing at a time. So if you're someone who can't make a seven to 10 day stretch because maybe just cooking that much is overwhelming to you and you don't know how you're gonna do that. Eliminate one day a week that you're eating out, plan one extra meal per week where you're like, okay, this day I'm not eating out and I'm gonna have breakfast, lunch, and dinner from home. And then once you master that and it feel little more capable, add another day on for that next week and just kind of tackle it in baby steps rather than trying to do one big overhaul. It's just going to be much more realistic for the average person.

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[DSW Announcer]

Okay, so, so let's talk about these systems that you were mentioning. Because the biggest barrier to meal planning, especially when you're trying to get like in depth, is the time that it takes to plan and setting that time aside every Saturday or Sunday to make the plan. And it can take a long time if you're not like working with systems. So like, what, what do you do to make this, like, sustainable?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. My biggest tip is to make your time that you are spending in the kitchen count for multiple meals. To give an example, a lot of times people just plan on making a breakfast, right? And they're in the kitchen, let's say they're making blueberry pancakes. They make the blueberry pancake. The meal's done. Now they have to clean it all up. My mindset is to Sort of make that time that you're making blueberry pancakes count for a ton of future days. So you're already there. You're already in the kitchen, making the batter, making the mess, having to do all the cooking. Instead of just making blueberry pancakes for that day, let's make an extra three dozen. That sounds crazy, but when you actually look at the time it's taking, it's really not adding much more time because you were already there doing all of the starting steps. So following through with a couple extra batches of pancakes, it's saving you the time in the future. I always say my future self will thank me for making these snacks. Just systems that duplicate recipes in really large batches is my biggest tip. I use this for breakfast. I have something called a breakfast freezer stock. And basically what it means is exactly what I just explained. Anytime I'm making something for breakfast. Because this is a huge way to reduce your budget. Homemade breakfast items are pennies on the dol compared to what you're spending at the store. And most of them are so simple. And so whenever I'm making something, I make at least two batches, sometimes three, and then I throw them in my freezer. And on busy mornings when I don't have time to think about all of this, because that's just reality, I can take something out of the freezer stock that I made a couple weeks ago, pop it in my microwave or my toaster oven, and I'm sticking to my plan because I created my own convenience.

[Jen and Jill]

Yeah. One of the things that stands out to me about what you're doing and some of the systems that you've created is both the meal planning and the budget friendly aspect of it. I feel like I have just recently been able to combine the two. But I think oftentimes when we start out, it's. It's meal planning. I can make a meal plan. I can look up recipes and da da da. But then ingredients from one thing don't carry over to the next. And a lot of times we'll only meal plan for dinner. I don't know why, but most of us eat three meals a day, maybe two. But still, there's more than just dinner and snacks that we're eating. And so I'm curious for you how that merges, how you are able to, when you're sitting down to make a meal plan. Combining it with this is going to be cost effective too.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. So I always say I'm an ingredient household. I make a lot of things homemade and to some People that feels really overwhelming because they immediately think that takes a ton of time. But basically the way that I have molded the two together is I've learned how to make really basic things from ingredients rather than buying those pre made at the store, like muffins, simple things like that, but also doing it in that batch style cooking. So the way I've been able to combine it is kind of taking two different systems and melding them into one. Because you have those people on, on Instagram, you know, like the Nora Smiths, they're making all of these homemade things. Mine aren't extravagant though. I think the biggest key to success is almost lowering your standard. Instead of trying to meal plan these extravagant meals, what if we just meal planned simple things? Because when you go simple, the ingredients are basic and it's cheap, but also it's, it's easy to make and it's easy to batch prep and then you can kind of meld the two into one.

[Jen and Jill]

How much time would you say you are spending both meal planning and prepping all of these ingredients and meals?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, the meal planning itself is honestly not that much time. I think especially once you get in the routine of knowing what your family enjoys. Like for our breakfast items, I kind of have my five to seven go to things and we just rotate through those. So for me that is more of an autopilot thing. The dinners. My business is based around writing a whole new meal plan for people every month. So I do have to get more creative with that probably than the average person. So I can't put the same thing out every month. But I would say Overall maybe like 30 minutes to an hour a week where I'm like actually planning out what we're eating. And then as far as the cooking, I. For someone who has a cooking platform, I hate being in the kitchen. It is probably my least favorite place to be. So I don't even cook every day because I'm using that batch prepping. So I cook dinner about every other night. I cook breakfast like those big bulk batches maybe three times a month. And then lunch is usually just simple things that I'm throwing together. So I really am not spending a ton of time in the kitchen. I would gamble to say even less time than the average person who's not meal planning.

[Jen and Jill]

Can you give us some examples of your throw together lunches? This is just for me, really?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Absolutely.

[Jen and Jill]

Lunch lunch is such a stumper for me.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

You're probably going to be underwhelmed by what I say because simplicity is my go to I always try and pair high protein. So salami cheese crackers, that's one of my kids favorites. Quesadillas and guac with some kind of, you know, fresh fruit and maybe like a Greek yogurt. Diplomatic. My kids love leftovers for some reason. So we'll do like. Like we had a friendsgiving this last weekend, so we've been reheating the meat and the side dishes from that. I hate wasting food. So that's always my go to stuff that's prepared. Chicken salads, big batches of chicken salads, simple things that are kind of almost preassembled or just really easy to throw together because we're on the go a lot so we just don't have time. I see a lot of really extravagant prepped lunches and I think that's wonderful. I'm a family of five with three kids and so it's just not as easily to implement for me. So I go simple components. Components are a big key. So keeping things in your fridge. Like I do a big batch of hard boiled eggs every weekend to last us the whole week. I have pre like prepared fresh washed fruits ready to go in the fridge. Everything's kind of like prepared so that when we're in that rush and we need something fast for lunch, we can grab it, throw it on a plate, eat it and be done.

[DSW Announcer]

And what does your prep look like? So I know you're doing those breakfast bulk batches like three times a month, but what is your, how long does your weekly prep take and kind of what does it look like?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

So I don't do it all at once. And I will say that I think that is really important for the average family. I'm not one of those people who spends five hours on a Sunday doing stuff because I don't want to spend five hours on my Sunday doing that. And I don't think anybody else does either. So kind of what my routine is is when we come home from the grocery store, as I'm unpacking everything, that's when I'm sort of rinsing and washing my fruits, throwing them in the containers, getting them in the fridge. That's my routine with that. And then my dinners, like I told you, is about every other night. And the breakfast prep, I tend to try and double down. So I will say we're having those blueberry pancakes for breakfast. And as we're having that for breakfast is when I'm also making those extra batches and getting them in the freezer. So the sacrifice there would maybe be I'm not sitting down and having that blueberry pancake breakfast with my family. I'm in the kitchen and talking to them as they're eating their pancakes. And I'm making those extra batches to get them in the freezer. So I try and do it in little spurts rather than one big trip so that it kind of fits a little better into our busy schedule.

[DSW Announcer]

Yeah, but then you can have like seven other blueberry pancake breakfasts with them because you're not making more.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yes. And so I think most people have kids, they're getting out the door to school in the morning, or if you don't have kids, you're still trying to get out the store, the door to work. So my thing is I want to be able to have a well rounded breakfast in five minutes, minutes on a busy morning. And so when you have things like those pancakes in your freezer, you're able to wake up, they reheat perfectly in the microwave, toss them with a little bit of Greek yogurt and fresh, fresh fruit. Homemade pancakes are significantly more nutritious. And you have a well rounded breakfast and you've warmed it up in 30 seconds in the microwave and tossed it on a plate. So that is really. I always think about my future self. I'm like, okay, yes, I'm making three dozen pancakes right now instead of sitting down and eating these pancakes with my family. However, on those mornings when I'm trying to get everything going, I'm able to have breakfast in five minutes.

[Jen and Jill]

One of my biggest barriers when it comes to meal planning is the inspiration. Week to week, month to month, I will often just go. I do keep a written list similar to my spending plan. It's all just written down with pen and paper. But I. So I will write down like, what are we going to do? I just do lunch and dinner because breakfast is like always the same. Yeah. But I just feel like I get in such a rut where I then will just redo the last two weeks. And that works for a time, but I feel like the flexibility, the variety is also what I'm looking for. I'm curious how you do that since you've said you have to put a little bit more effort than maybe the average person to get content out to your followers. Where do you find inspiration for meal ideas? What, what tips do you have to kind of spark that creativity in the kitchen?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, absolutely. So of course I have my go to's as well. Just stuff that I kind of keep in the back pocket when I can't fill those last couple of days. The spaghetti is. And the chilies of the world that everybody is used to throwing in. I think when you're really in a rut, I always suggest Pinterest to people. You have people on Pinterest like me, right. Who their job is to kind of come up with food ideas, and you can use it as a keyword search. I think a lot of people are kind of sleeping on Pinterest a little bit because they're not actually using it the way that it works best. So if you're trying to come up with meals, you can plug in chicken pasta recipe, beef protein recipe, and it pulls up stuff almost like a chat GPT would, and you have the recipes ready to go right there. Personally, for me, I try and mix flavors together. So I'll give you an example. A couple weeks ago, I had a second pack of ravioli tortellini type of things because I bought a two pack from Costco, but my kids really wanted my homemade Mac and cheese. And I was like, I'm gonna combine these two things. Like, you can't go wrong with a tortellini pasta. But then making it as a Mac and cheese recipe, and I sort of just combined the two flavors together and I made a tortellini Mac and cheese. So I. It was delicious, by the way.

[DSW Announcer]

Yeah, that's. That is the amount of cheese that needs. Mac and cheese needs.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. Yes, it was. My daughter, she's our carb monster, and she was in heaven. She loved it. But I just try and mix flavors to come up with something a little different. I also love a good protein that's really flexible. One of the things that I have done in some of my newer meal plans is something that I call a variation option. And I think that this is really helpful for exactly what you're talking about, which is like burnout of certain flavors. So for me, I don't like cooking every day, so I tend to double batch a recipe. So if I'm making, you know, just basic beef tacos, I'm going to double that basic beef taco recipe so that we can have a second meal from it later in the week. But some people don't like having the same thing two times. And so I started giving a variation option, and it was basically, hey, here's these components you already had. For this first meal, I'm using tacos as an example because it's just simple and everybody knows what I'm saying. But you had these beef tacos, and now this second meal. Here's what you need to add these two things to turn it into a beef burrito bowl or enchiladas, kind of taking those same things that you already spent time prepping, but turning it into a new meal so it tastes a little bit different and you're not having to have that burnout flavor.

[DSW Announcer]

I think what you are saying is the key. I think it's the key to this episode because we always say how in frugality, the real way to save money is to give yourself parameters that foster creativity. When we always have money in order to solve our problems, then we don't give ourselves the space to get creative, to save money in certain ways. And a lot of times that those restrictions are, you know, imposed by the money that we have. But even when we increase our income, we want to self impose those restrictions to continue to not let our lifestyles inflate.

[Jen and Jill]

Right.

[DSW Announcer]

And so what you're doing is you are prioritizing space to be creative. And that's, I mean, that's how you come up with things like tortellini, Mac and cheese, right? It's not something you maybe will do all the time or whatever, but it's this space to get creative with the variation, the repurposing and all that. Like at the end of the day, that's going to be like the real key to reducing your food waste and eating more of the food you have at home.

[Jen and Jill]

I feel like that repurposing piece is a hard one to teach. I think it aligns with what you're saying, Mandy, that this is a skill that we can build over time. But with that, I'm curious if you have anything to say about prioritizing repurposing ingredients throughout the week. Some simple tips on how to think about this, because I know you've also mentioned eliminating food waste and that's part of this equation and keeping this kind of budget friendly meal planning. So when we sit down and make a meal plan, rather than just, oh, that looks good and that looks good, and that looks good. Any quick tips for us on how we can make sure these ingredients flow through the week, that we aren't wasting stuff?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Absolutely. So the first thing is similar proteins. I think we kill our grocery budget a lot when we try and have too much variety in one grocery shopping trip? Because when you think about it, the best, most frugal way to buy proteins is in bulk. I buy a lot of my protein at Costco. When you're doing that though, if you're then saying, oh, we're going to Have a steak meal and a chicken meal and a pork meal and a ground beef meal. You're having to buy a lot at one time. And not that it won't get used, right, because you can use your meat, you know, for a long period of time. But for me, I really try and stick to a solid weekly budget. My family, I try and spend just $80 a week on our dinners. So if I'm trying to fit all of that diversity into one week, it's blowing my grocery budget up. And I think a lot of times we then forget it's in the freezer, we don't use it, it doesn't sound good. So I try and stick to similar proteins. So let's say in the week I'm like, okay, I'm going to make chicken and beef meals this week. And it helps me narrow in on what I'm buying. Also, a lot of times you have side dishes that you can use for multiple meals. So especially during the summer seasons, I mean, any season. But I. My family loves a good cold pasta salad, and during the summer we tend to have that more often with the warmer weather. But I know that pasta salad recipe is huge and we're not eating that in just one meal. So I will tend to side share. Meaning, like I make that big batch of pasta salad and it's a side dish for a couple of different meals that we're having during the week. I think a lot of side dishes can reheat perfectly to do that side share so that you're not wasting food and making a big old batch of something and then tossing it the next day. And then also similar produce. So things like bell peppers, one bell pepper right now at the store is like a $50 to a $80, but you can get a three pack for like $3. So I tend to opt for the three pack and maybe I'm making a couple different meals that week that include bell peppers. So just kind of trying to take what you have on your grocery list and make multiple meals out of it instead of having a ton of variety because you inevitably, you inevitably will have to buy more than what you're probably going to use in that recipe. And then if you don't have plans for the rest of it, it's going to waste. And my biggest pet peeve is throwing food away because. Because you're literally dumping dollars in the trash can.

[Jen and Jill]

And like you said earlier, ChatGPT and Pinterest and just the Internet can be really helpful with this if we don't have the ideas in our brains. Okay, I've got one extra bell pepper and some shredded chicken. What do I do with this? And let the Internet decide for you?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Absolutely.

[DSW Announcer]

You know what? I don't ever let the Internet decide for me. So many things, but not this one thing. This needs to come right from the.

[Jen and Jill]

Source, and it brings variety. The bill of the week.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

That's right. It's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills. Buffalo Bills. Bill Clinton. This is the bill of the week.

[DSW Announcer]

Mandy. Every week, we yell at our guests and our faithful listeners to share with us their bill for the week. And we would love to hear yours.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Okay, my bill of the week is a friendsgiving bill. So, my friends, we do a friendsgiving celebration every year. And this year, I actually wrote a helpful holiday guide for the holiday holidays, and I wanted to test it all out. And so I actually catered a Friendsgiving for about 13 people. And I made all of the side dishes for $70. So we had a pumpkin cobbler with vanilla ice cream. We had a baked Mac and cheese. We had a mashed potato casserole with homemade gravy. I made dinner rolls and biscuits and a garden salad. I had about seven different side dishes that fed 13 people, plus leftovers, and I only spent about $70 at the grocery store.

[Jen and Jill]

That's amazing. That's a great bill. I love that bill for feeding that many people. And you made all that food yourself.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Okay. It's honestly the simplest recipes, the biggest crowd pleasers. But, yes, I did. I made all of those in about two hours to cater. Now, granted, Jill and I are like.

[DSW Announcer]

Like, what?

[Jen and Jill]

What am I doing wrong? What am I doing wrong?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I. I think most people aren't making that much food in one stretch, so I always had to say that you could make a lot of Those dishes in 10 to 15 minutes in the kitchen. I was catering almost the whole thing, so I did all of it in about two and a half hours. Yeah, that doesn't include bake times for everything. Obviously, stuff had to get popped in the oven.

[Jen and Jill]

But we have to find more friends who have food Instagram accounts.

[DSW Announcer]

We have so many budgeting friends and minimalism friends. And you know where we have really dropped the ball maybe is food fluencers. And I think you have really lit the fire under us, too.

[Jen and Jill]

We're moving. We're moving your way.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Come on over To Kansas City. My friends, they definitely weren't upset when I said, hey, can we have a friendsgiving in October so I can make all these dishes and try them out? They said, yes, absolutely.

[Jen and Jill]

What was your favorite thing that you made?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

The pumpkin cobbler. Honestly? Honestly, I unfortunately had leftovers, and I've been eating it every night since then. I can't even explain. So this pumpkin cobbler, it's very basic. Cobblers are so simple. So if you're a newbie at baking, you gotta get this recipe. But essentially, when you go to bake it, you top it with, you know, brown sugar and sugar. This is not a healthy one. And then you pour water over it, which sounds crazy, but what it does is when it baked, it makes a caramel sauce that lines the whole bottom of the pan. So it's a pumpkin cobbler. And when you scoop it out, the hole underneath is like this gooey caramel. And then you serve it with warm vanilla ice cream. It made me say pumpkin pie. Who?

[Jen and Jill]

It sounds so good. I guarantee I would mess that up, like, the second you start to pour water over it. Like, I don't think it'd come out that way. It would be chili rellenos for me. What is this mush?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I'm convinced it's a no fail. I was skeptic the very first time I made it. A long time ago, I was very skeptical to say, is this gonna work out? Cause this feels like a lot of water. But it just. It basically goes around the batter and to the bottom.

[Jen and Jill]

I'm gonna have to take your word for it. That's amazing, though, Mandy. Well done. For all of you listening, if you have a bill that you wanna share, if it's about just dumping water over something and it turning into some sweet, sweet pumpkin goodness, or if it's about the money that you didn't have to spend this holiday season or the money you didn't mind spending, you know the drill. Frugalfriendspodcast.com Bill, leave us your bill. We can't wait for it.

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[Jen and Jill]

And now it's time for the lightning round.

[DSW Announcer]

Man, I wish someone would pour water on me and I would turn into.

[Jen and Jill]

Pour some sugar on me.

[DSW Announcer]

And water.

[Jen and Jill]

And water.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

And water hydration.

[Mandy Clance]

Yeah.

[DSW Announcer]

Okay, so for today's lightning round, we want to know, so what's on your meal plan this week, maybe that you're most excited about?

[Mandy Clance]

Mandy.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

All right. When we're filming this, it's around Halloween and my kids love a good themed meal. So we had a mummy calzone, which was just a calzone, and then I wrapped it up and made it look like a mummy.

[DSW Announcer]

That's cute.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Crock pot carnitas burritos. Three ingredient carnitas in the crock pot. Shred it up, make burritos with it. Delicious. A ravioli bake, also so simple. Throw a bunch of stuff in a 9 by 13 gooey goodness pasta. We had mummy dogs. That's a good one.

[Jen and Jill]

Please tell me that's hot dogs. Please tell me that is just some hot dogs you could make.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Mummy.

[Jen and Jill]

I love hot dogs.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Can I tell you a secret?

[Jen and Jill]

I love secrets.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

It doesn't have to be a mummy. You can just make this recipe. It's hot dogs wrap. I make a homemade crescent dough. But if you're not a homemade girly, you could just do crescent dough from the store and you wrap them up in crescent dough and bake them. And it's like this beautiful blend between hot dogs and corn dogs. But it's also a. It would be great for New Year's. Everybody would love you for New Year's. It's so good.

[DSW Announcer]

Jill's in a blanket.

[Jen and Jill]

That's what you call it?

[DSW Announcer]

Jill's in a blanket.

[Jen and Jill]

I'm somewhere else now. I am not podcasting. I'm imagining hot dogs.

[DSW Announcer]

Okay, well, I'll go. So I'll let Jill come back to us and I will go. Okay, so I will pull up my meal plan right now because I don't My brain doesn't hold information for long.

[Jen and Jill]

You keep it digitally?

[DSW Announcer]

Yeah, I do. Yeah, of course. So tonight actually, we had an emergency Sunday, so I couldn't make what I wanted to make Sunday. So that pushed everything forward or back. I don't know. Last night was salads. I actually had a salad with just like chicken rotisserie chicken on it. But we had a leftover rotisserie chicken, and I saw on Instagram this recipe for a five ingredient AVGA lemono soup. And I love Greek food. And so I tried it and it turned out pretty good. I brought the leftovers today for lunch, but I didn't have it last night. I had a salad last night and brought. Because it only made two servings because it was only half a rotisserie chicken. I got unstuffed peppers, sheet pan roasted chicken with veggies. And my veggies are. I have brussels sprouts, asparagus, and carrots.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah.

[DSW Announcer]

So I'll probably make all of them at the same time, but only do two because I think I have more sheet pan chicken. We'll see spaghetti and meatball and, oh, a roasted chicken apple kale salad.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yum.

[DSW Announcer]

Yeah, I love kale salads.

[Jen and Jill]

Look at you go.

[DSW Announcer]

Oh. And then on Sunday, I got a rosemary lemon chicken bake.

[Jen and Jill]

These are all new words coming out of your mouth. Like you're good at coming up with new things.

[DSW Announcer]

Oh, wow. I'm gonna. I'm gonna spoil this for people. I pay for an app.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

You know what?

[Jen and Jill]

This isn't me, girlies.

[DSW Announcer]

I pay for an app that has options and I plug them into my days. Like, I've got my breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks all planned out with recipes from.

[Jen and Jill]

I love that.

[DSW Announcer]

Yeah.

[Jen and Jill]

So you don't have to be a type A person. You can just know how to download an app.

[DSW Announcer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah.

[DSW Announcer]

And you have to pay money. Like, if you want somebody else to do it for you, like Mandy, like you sell meal plans.

[Jen and Jill]

Yeah.

[DSW Announcer]

You can have Mandy do it for you, but you will have to pay some money. So it honestly, it's a seasonal thing for me. Sometimes I want to do it myself, and some seasons I don't want to do it myself.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah.

[DSW Announcer]

And I pay. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing.

[Jen and Jill]

Yes.

[Mandy Clance]

Very seasonal.

[Jen and Jill]

Yes, yes.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

But you know what, though? I think sometimes people over complicated in their brain because they think, oh, I'm spending a little bit of money. Right. Like, I'm paying this planty Mandy Girl 12.99. It's like, okay, yes. You Are, however, is it helping you save way more than that at the grocery store, or is it helping you avoid stopping for takeout, which is going to cost you a solid $50? I think people sometimes don't think about that income and output of you're paying someone, but this is their job and they're probably doing it really well to help you save more than you're spending.

[DSW Announcer]

It helps me save time to make it sustainable so that I stick with it. And now that I have this, I eat out so much. Like there was six weeks that I just didn't eat out at all.

[Jen and Jill]

Not to mention the skillset that you build because you get to experience what an expert has created for you. Like, we get to see through you, Mandy. Ten years of experience. Here's how you can reduce your food waste rather than just trying to hack it yourself and feeling like really bummed that you can't do it yet because you're just starting out. So I've learned so much through learning from other people on Instagram or. Yeah, just yourself, these podcast interviews. I don't think we can do it alone. I think sometimes we do have to pay for it or we're going to spend the time researching it ourselves. For me, speaking of paying for convenience, this week is a weird one for me. We just got back from like a two week trip to Europe, which was very lovely and very fun. And I will often, when I'm gone for a long time, give myself the gift of a meal delivery kit upon my return. And I take advantage of the the intro offer. So this is a meal kit delivery I've never received before. So I paid $80 for five meals, four servings each meal. There's only two of us in our household. But to your point, Mandy, I like to make a lot at once and I'll either freeze it or it'll be another meal for another day. So essentially like 10 meals for my husband and I for $80. So it wasn't even like that expensive.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

No.

[Jen and Jill]

So I haven't had to go grocery shopping now in home and it really kind of eliminates a lot of what I'll need to buy now. I'll need to get like some fruits and stuff for us to be able to have breakfast. But it really has taken the stress out of kind of coming home and getting back into the rhythm and needing to have a meal plan and go grocery shopping and remember what I have in my pantry. It just, it showed up the day we got back and food is decided. And that feels like such a Kindness to me.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah.

[DSW Announcer]

That really does. Does help with you avoiding like eating out even more because you've been eating out on vacation.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

The last thing I want to do.

[DSW Announcer]

When I get home is eat out more because I haven't had time to go.

[Jen and Jill]

But it feels like whiplash to be like, get back into the groove of things and like, come up with what you're making and quick, get yourself to the grocery store. It's just like I have a few days now before I have to get to the grocery store, which feels so, so great. I'm not going to keep receiving the meals, but, but this is a really helpful, like soft landing for this first week home.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, it's a stepping stone. I heard someone recently say, give yourself permission to be a beginner. And I really loved that because I think when you're talking about budget stuff, if you haven't learned those skills yet, you are a beginner and you're not going to do it. Great. Or like what you're saying, you have a transition period. It's like you don't have to commit to paying for that service forever. Just a short period of time as a stepping stone of okay, you're a beginner.

[Jen and Jill]

Yeah. Thanks so much, Mandy, for all of your insight and tips. For those who really want to learn more from you or even get your meal plans, how can they find you?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

You can find me on Instagram. On Instagram, I'm Plandy Mandy and I actually share free recipe videos there every day so you can come and try some stuff out for free. My meal plans are also on Etsy and those are fully built meal plans. Pre shopped grocery carts, pre counted macros, the whole nine yards. And I'm also Plandy Mandy on Etsy as well.

[Jen and Jill]

Lovely. Thanks so much, Mandy.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Thanks. Of course. Thank you.

[Mandy Clance]

I love, I loved all of that. And if you actually want to check out Mandy's meal plans, she's given us a 30% off code. Use Frugal Friends 30. Just search plandy Mandy on Etsy where her meal plans are and use the code FRUGAL FRIENDS30 for 30% off.

[Jen and Jill]

I love that. Yeah, I, I love, I love hiring it out for convenience when it's needed, as you just heard in our lightning round.

[Mandy Clance]

And when I was, when we were talking about it, I was like, this sounds so like not stereotypically frugal. There's going to definitely be somebody that comes at us and is like, they're talking about spending more money to save money on groceries in, in reality sometimes. And this is And I hate this saying and I'm going to say it out loud.

[Jen and Jill]

Are we going to say at the same time, sometimes you have to spend money to make money? So close.

[Mandy Clance]

Yeah, so close. But still true. Say spend a little to save a lot. And that is not always the case. A lot of the times that comes like out of procrastis spending where we spend when we don't need to to make us feel like we're doing something. But. But there are definitely seasons where spending a little to save a little time and sanity is what causes you to save more in the long run.

[Jen and Jill]

And again, I can't highlight enough how much it can teach us the skill that we need to eventually be able to do it on our own. That we can't just immediately start and have flawless low waste ingredient overlapping throughout the whole week when we are able to purchase. Whether it's a meal kit or a meal plan or whatever it is that can almost become a template for us over time. So I don't think we have to feel locked in, but it's nice to have these resources.

[Mandy Clance]

I mean, I just talked to a friend who is doing YouTube and he's paying just for the thumbnails of his video. Like three or $400 a thumbnail. Right. And he told me I don't plan to do this forever. Like yes, that is stupid expense. That's obnoxiously exposed expensive. You could get these done for $50 piece. But he spends a lot of money because he wants to take time learning from somebody who's in the top of their game, who know who is obsessed with the psychology of YouTube thumbnails and learn what they do to get these really high converting thumbnails so that eventually he can just do it himself.

[Jen and Jill]

Yeah, that's great.

[Mandy Clance]

Sometimes. Yeah. It's not always about spending money all the time, but spending money in the seasons where it's most beneficial to you to save even more. Thank you for listening. We love reading your kind reviews and if this episode helped you, I hope that you will leave a rating and review. Kind of like G djl 1952 happens to be 5 stars and they say funny and useful. I enjoy listening to this show very much. The stories of folks who have paid off significant debt are inspiring. Shows about investing and financial planning are educational. The shows that discuss various strategies for saving money on everything from groceries, groceries to clothing provide lots of useful tips. All information is provided with big doses of humor. Thank you djl.

[Jen and Jill]

That's amazing. Thank you so much for leaving that review. It really does help us. And if you have not left us a review before and you are enjoying this show, we really encourage you to do that. It only takes a minute and it helps us immensely. It helps potential new listeners find us, know what the show is about. And it just. It's just good. It's just good for us. And then we read them on the show and that's fun too. So it creates content. Content for us. So thank you.

[Mandy Clance]

Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.

[Jen and Jill]

Okay, Jen. Okay. Oh, you have something for me?

[Mandy Clance]

Oh, my last episode, I. We didn't get to talk about fincon. Okay. So not many people will know what Fin Con is. It is for financial media creators. So your favorite podcasters, your favorite YouTubers, your favorite Instagrammers, bloggers. Bloggers, you know, your favorite media creators, favorite media creators in the personal finance space. Only in the personal finance. Although I did there was a interior decorator there who was there to meet.

[Jen and Jill]

She's like, why am I here?

[Mandy Clance]

She was there on purpose to meet real estate investor influencers to get her work in front of them.

[Jen and Jill]

Smart.

[Mandy Clance]

Yeah, because I mean, real estate, like housing, is still in personal finance. So I have to tell you that I am never more wined and dined than I am when I am at fincon. And I get to hang out with so many cool people and do so.

[Jen and Jill]

Many things without my children and without your business partner. We should probably update everyone that Jen goes to fincon and I, Jill, choose not to. I went one time and that was enough.

[Mandy Clance]

And everybody every year asks because I go and I room with my friend Caroline from CarolineVentel.com and they always think Caroline is Jill. And then I say, she says, we're frugal friends, but we're not the frugal friends. And people are like, where's Jill? And this year I had to say, jill's in Europe. And they were like, lucky. And I was like, mm. And they're like, where? And I was like, she told me. And I don't remember because I haven't seen her in a month.

[Jen and Jill]

Yeah, it was back to back hurricane for us. And then. And then I went to Europe, Europe and fincon.

[Mandy Clance]

And everyone asked about you. Everyone said, hello, thank you. And I ate. I went to a surf and turf dinner and I ate an extra surf.

[Jen and Jill]

Thank you.

[DSW Announcer]

Yeah.

[Jen and Jill]

What was your favorite food and drink? Bevy, you got in being wined and dined at fincon.

[Mandy Clance]

Okay, so I'm going to lose my frugal influencer card on this. But that Surf and turf was the most immaculate dinner I've ever had.

[Jen and Jill]

Well, it was provided for you, so you still get to keep your card.

[Mandy Clance]

No, I was there on a fintech company's venture capital money.

[Jen and Jill]

Like.

[Mandy Clance]

Yeah. And then the best drink I had was an espresso martini from the Ritz Carlton. And it was so good. I went back the last day and I had two. But I didn't pay for either of them.

[Jen and Jill]

I love that you're totally keeping all your cards right now. Even your credit card had stayed in your pocket.

[Mandy Clance]

The first one I did pay for was a $21 martini.

[Jen and Jill]

Oh, wow.

[Mandy Clance]

And I went back and intended to buy another 21 martini, and I was just lucky enough that I could have two paying for them.

[Jen and Jill]

Wow.

[Mandy Clance]

Because I walked out. No, it was two different friends got each round.

[Jen and Jill]

Oh, that's so kind of them.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I know.

[Jen and Jill]

Wow. It pays to have friends.

[Mandy Clance]

It does pay to have friends. For sure. I've been in the personal finance game for like 10, 15, 20 years.

[Jen and Jill]

I'm so glad you had a nice time. And I'm so glad we're back together. Same never leave me.

[Mandy Clance]

Okay.

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[Jen and Jill]

Thanks so much. See you soon.

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[Jen and Jill]

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[Jen and Jill]

It's pretty awesome, right?

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[Jen and Jill]

For Sister with a Chloe bracelet bag.

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