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The Socially Awkward Mom, San Antonio, TX (2026)

09/29/2025

I refuse to purchase anything from Starbucks, in all honesty, I don't think they have gotten a dime out of me in well over a decade, obviously they are doing well and don't miss my patronage. I refuse to support any business that does not value our troops or law enforcement, but that is just me, you are free to spend your hard earned money however you see fit. Part of the perks of living in a country that values freedom so much. That said, when I heard about Charlie Kirk having a signature drink, I wanted to try it, but felt so conflicted. I stumbled upon this copy cat recipe today on the Internet and I couldn't be more excited to try it!!! I am posting it here in case any of you want to give it a whirl, while saving money by making it from home. Sorry the print is so blurry, I couldn't figure out how to make it more clear, but it sure seems like it is delicious!

09/29/2025

Operation Santa registration is OPEN! If times are hard, and the thought of providing your child a good Christmas is heavy on your heart, the wonderful people at the Postal Service have once again decided to offer this program. Just have your child write and mail a letter to Santa, then one of his elves will take care of the rest! A link to the program can be found here: bit.ly/4q4IdrV

Did you know you can even assist the elves, and anonymously help provide gifts to the kiddos in need as well. Our family always does Operation Christmas Child through our church, and we will be adding this to our tradition as well. Christmas last year was so difficult for our family, if it were not our friends piecing together Christmas gifts for our children they wouldn't have received anything. This year we have been blessed beyond measure and we cannot wait to be the elves for others! I am so excited to shop for these kids!!! 🎄🎁

09/27/2025

I am always looking for ways to save, because all these streaming services add up to more than the cost of cable for some people, it is crazy anymore (looking at you Netflix, always raising prices 🤣)

Anyway, I found out that Scholastic....yes, THAT Scholastic, like the magical book fairs from childhood Scholastic, has just released a free app on Roku, it might be on other platforms as well, I am not sure, we just have Roku TV's in our home. It has a great selection, including all of the episodes of Goosebumps, perfect for a family TV night with Spooky Season coming around the corner. We have been watching the app all morning, I am going to count The Magic Schoolbus as science for the day, oh the joys of being a homeschool mom! Fair warning though, it has Barney The Dinosaur...do with that information as you will, I have a three and four year old, and just told them Barney was down for a nap, and we couldn't watch him right now. Truth be told, there just isn't enough Excedrin in the world sometimes to get me through something, Barney is one of those things.

09/27/2025

Our cars might be a 2004 and a 2012, but we would rather drive a be**er with a heater, than have a car payment 🤣

09/26/2025

Frugal Tip Friday! Fun fact, once for an entire month I was counting exactly how many laundry detergent pods I was using. Indeed, I may be a nerd. Anyway, I was going through two boxes of 152 count Gain Pods Original Scent Pods per month. We buy these from Sam's Club for $29.88 per box. Two boxes per month is $59.76 + tax. In three months that total climbs to $179.28 + tax. I would do my best to stock up on them when Sam's Club would run a sale, but it wasn't always possible to buy exactly how many I needed until the next Instant Savings promotion.

I am always looking for ways to save money. I was walking around the aisles of Sam's and had an epiphany. I love the smell of Gain, it has had me in a chokehold I cannot explain for over a decade, so what if I could get the same cleaning power and the same scent? Had to be possible, right? I headed home and started researching some homemade laundry detergent recipes. A lot of them called for Borax and Super Washing Suds and Fels-Naptha bars. After doing more research, these products in combination can ruin or even damage your washer, replacing that would greatly outweigh any detergent savings.

Then, I started playing around with my own recipes, I can confidently after months and months say I have now perfected it. For the cost of $59.44 + tax I can now make three months of laundry detergent, and not sacrifice my Gain smell. Best of all, I am saving $119.84 + tax every three months making it myself!!!! That is almost $470 per year.

You will need a food processor that you will never use for food prep again and a big, five gallon bucket with a tight fitting lid for this project. Also a thick wooden stick or large wooden spoon would be helpful. Again, these cannot be used for food later. I just ran to my local Goodwill and got the food processor and spoon, I sacrificed my homemade moonshine bucket for the detergent, which reminds me, I will need to buy another bucket closer to Thanksgiving. If you don't have a bucket you can ask Sam's Club in the bakery for an extra, empty frosting bucket, or pick one up from your local home improvement store.

You will also need an 183 sized box of Gain Original Scent powdered detergent
1 39.9 ounce bottle of Gain Original Scent Scent Booster Beads and an 11 pound box of Oxi-Clean.

Step 1: Empty half of the container of Scent Booster Beads into the food processor and blend them until they are a powder. Repeat for the second half of the bottle and set aside.

Step 2: In your clean, five gallon bucket you are going to make a detergent lasagna. Bottom layer empty about 1/4 of the box of Gain Original Powder, then top with 1/4 of the box of Oxi-Clean Powder, then add a couple of cups (eyeballed, does not need to be exact) of the ground Scent Booster Beads. Then stir with your wooden stick or spoon. Repeat until all the product has been used.

Step 3: Use your spoon or stick to stir as well as you can again. Then, seal the bucket with the tight fitting lid, lay the bucket down on its side and gently roll it across the floor for about five minutes. Don't pay any attention to the looks you will get from your kids.

Step 4: If you want, you can place some of the detergent into sperate containers that are easy to handle, versus a big heavy bucket, if not, you can totally store it in the bucket as well.

To use, my washer has a little cubby compartment for powder detergent, so I use that. It was found by complete mistake one day, like Bob Ross says Happy Accidents. I use the little cup that came with the Gain detergent, and follow those general markings for my loads....which are always large/heavy/heavy soiled. I typically wash on warm, but the detergent also performs well on cold as well.

If the scent of Gain isn't your thing, you can literally use whatever brand you enjoy, including unscented options for sensitive skin. Yes, for the haters out there, I know Gain is apparently full of chemicals, but here is the deal, so is my Diet Dr. Pepper and I am not giving that up either. You want some organic, koombaya detergent nonsense, great, you do do, I am sure Pinterest has a million crunchy recipes out there for you, go down to the river and beat your clothes with a rock, pick a recipe... whatever, because we don't do that over here. We are all going to die of something, at least my clothes will be clean and smell good when I am gone 🤣

09/25/2025

Here is our meal plan for Friday, September 26th to Thursday, October 2nd.

We might not meet some folks standards for what we eat, we are far from organic, we are real, we are not trying to look Pinterest Perfect, everything is made with love, my kids are healthy and happy and have full bellies, and that right there is good enough for me. These posts are just simply to give meal ideas, by no means are they for nutritional advice. If you want that, I suggest a different person to follow.

There are no stops through the drive thru, no Door Dash, nothing but home cooked meals, making as much as I can from scratch. I freezer prep breakfast once a month, so the kids can have that or oatmeal. For lunch is leftovers or fend for yourself. We don't usually do a lot of snacks, when we do the kids have fresh fruit, apples with peanut butter, popcorn, I will bake muffins or cookies from scratch, they make cinnamon toast, or tortillas. Fruit salads, yogurt, cut up veggies with ranch, Graham crackers with peanut butter, things like that. They do have choices to fill in the gaps between their next meal, believe me, no one goes hungry here, I even make sure the stray animals around us are fed. But we are an ingredient household, not a grab and go household, so everything involves at least a little bit of preparation.

You may notice that I don't have any meat on my list. When Jeremy gets his bonus checks, we set that money aside and go to Sam's Club and stock up. We typically will buy 40 pounds of 80/20 ground beef, two cases of bone in chicken thighs, two cases of chicken drumsticks, three cases of boneless skinless chicken breast, five boneless pork loins, two cases of frozen pizza dough, five boxes of Yoplait yogurt cups, and as much fresh fruit and veggies as we can get, without going over his bonus amount. We usually do this every three or so months.

I attached the screenshots of my WalMart grocery order. I do pickup orders to help me stay on a tight budget. I am able to track exactly what we are spending, I can compare prices easily and there isn't any room for impulse, especially if I went shopping with my kids or husband. I pulled it off this week slightly under budget, for $100.03 out of the $101.48! The $1.45 difference will roll into our budget for next week.

My handwriting isn't great, so here is the menu typed out if it is hard to read on your end

Friday, September 26th
Homemade pepperoni pizza, bread sticks and Halloween brownies

Saturday, September 27th:
BLT sandwiches, corn on the cob, chips, pea salad

Sunday, September 28th:
Ranch pork chops, sour cream and chive potatoes, applesauce

Monday, September 29th:
Stuffed meatloaf, baked potatoes, rolls, green beans, peanut butter bars

Tuesday, September 30th:
Pork carnitas, beans and rice

Wednesday, October 1st:
Bayou chicken pasta, garlic bread

Thursday, October 2nd:
"Fried" chicken legs, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn

09/25/2025

Come budget payday with me! Jeremy gets his paycheck tomorrow (9/26), before the money even hits our bank account, we like to have every penny planned out, with a specific purpose.

Here is our budget for the week of September 26th-October 2nd.

We divide our monthly rent and renters insurance on the same bill ($2,147) into weekly payments of $536.75, then pay it every Friday morning first thing once the paycheck hits our account.

This week our Wi-Fi bill is due, we use Spectrum Internet and our cellphones are due as well, for that we have Cricket Wireless, our unlimited plan includes five phones.

Christmas is only 13 Fridays away! Time to start planning. Each week (minus the week of October 17th) starting tomorrow we will pull out $100.00 from the bank, in addition to the $20.00 we will pull out for tithing at church. The Christmas budget will get stored away in a super secret hiding spot, and once Black Friday comes around Jeremy and I will have our annual shopping date day and put it to good use.

Nolan (senior) uses Power Homeschool for his curriculum. This will pull sometime about the 30th.

Our debt pay off journey has slowed a bit, this is for three reasons, the first, we knocked out the large credit card balances last month and now need to concentrate on our installment payment plans. The second, we were trying to have all of our debt (minus the Centris Federal Credit Union Loan) paid off by Halloween, so that Jeremy would be able to get off of the overnight shift and go to days, well, his work surprised him and and brought him onto day shift and kept his same rate of pay, so we can back off paying things off a little bit. Finally, we will cash flow Christmas this year instead of putting more debt onto our paid off credit cards. So we need to account for this expense in our budgeting.

On our debt columns you will see two numbers listed, the first is how much is left in our checking account once that expense is paid, the second is how much is left on that account to pay off the balance in full.

The new payoff goal is to have the following debt paid off on October 17th (my 43rd birthday):
Klarna Amazon
Klarna Amazon (two different accounts)
Affirm Sam's Club
Affirm VRBO

That will just leave the following until we are debt free:
Affirm Discount Tire Acadia
Affirm Discount Tire Jeep
Centris Federal Credit Union
The goal for these accounts is to have them paid off on March 26th, 2026 (Jeremy's 44th Birthday)

The babies need haircuts this week, as well as Jeremy and Nolan, they are all starting to get shaggy. Ben and Ollie go to Morgan's Wonderland for their haircuts, they specialize in the needs of Autism (and more) and are absolutely amazing. It is worth every single penny to take them there. The Acadia needs a new cabin air filter as well as front and rear windshield wipers, not that it rains much in San Antonio, but mine are starting to show some wear.

That leaves me $101.48 for groceries for a week for my family of eight. When Jeremy gets his bonuses from work we stock our freezers full of meat, doing that large expensive upfront allows me to keep our weekly costs low, we also meal plan everything to help prevent waste and control spending. I will post a menu here in a little bit.

09/14/2025

Today is Sunday. Churches across America were flooded with people who had never attended before. Who maybe had attended years ago and stepped away for whatever reason. Who felt something so heavy on their hearts this week with the passing of Charlie Kirk, and seeing how evil and ugly the world has become, that they were looking for something. People we thought were our friends, co-workers and family have shown a side of them we never thought they had, something so vile and evil to the core, and for many of us right now we are feeling such a deep sense of sadness.

This is my actual Bible, my husband has the same one but different copy, it has traveled the entire United States with him in his semi, and now it sits next to mine, on our headboard. If you are looking for an easy to follow Bible, written in plain English, this is it! You don't need to start on January 1st. Pick the current date and dive into those readings. It isn't overwhelming just a few pages per day, and covers the entire story of Christ in one year. If something has called you to read the Bible, listen to that voice.

I don't make a penny off of anything that people buy from the links I share, I have no affiliations to Amazon or other retailers. But I do care about leading those around me to Christ. I care about their salvation and yours, I care about your life and what and who who are following and putting your faith into.

https://a.co/d/i4vJsFU

If you ever want to talk about God, or have questions you are always welcome to message me. I am about as judgement free of a person as you will find, and I would be so happy to help answer your questions or pray for you. I know the world feels heavy right now, like it is just a lot, and I am here if you need someone.

09/13/2025

Usually this time of the week I will post a budget update, or a dinner menu, or a little tip to save money or what we are doing in homeschool, but right now my heart is heavy and I just can't. This world is so much uglier than I ever thought. If you are one of those people who are praising the Shoo*** of Charlie Kirk, please unfollow me, block me, do whatever you need to, to never see or interact with my page, because your hate has no room here. Please go find a different corner of the internet that better suits your needs, then being here on mine. God Bless Charlie Kirk, his family, his friends and all of those whose presence has been impacted by this incredible warrior of Christ.

09/10/2025

In my constant pursuit of saving every bit of money we can, I have adjusted a lot in my laundry room to save on the overall household cost. In a previous post, I had mentioned how we switched to dryer balls, instead of buying fabric softener sheets every month. This post is a side by side comparison on stain remover. Exciting stuff, I know. Between the little boys (ages 3 and 4), and a husband who is crawling under semi trucks all day long, I have become the master of getting stains out. I used to purchase four of the OxiClean stain sticks per month from Walmart. They are $3.92 each, that means I was spending $15.68 per month plus tax for stain remover. That really adds up over the course of a year ($188.16 + tax).

I remember some really old TV commercials from back in the day, and decided to try out this Shout Stain Remover from Sam's Club. I was really skeptical, because my little OxiClean sticks did such a great job, but in the name of science I started doing little experiments....yep, just like the commercials, I have no life. Shout actually out performed the OxiClean every single time. I think Shout even eliminated the dreaded ring around the collar in the late 80's and early 90's, because you never hear about it anymore. I am really aging myself here.

I go through one set of Shout from Sam's Club every three months, using it every day, multiple times a day, on some of the hardest to get out stains there are,... diesel fuel and ground in dirt anyone? You get a filled 22 ounce spray bottle, as well as a 128 ounce large refill bottle for $10.84 + tax. That means I will purchase this set only four times a year, and it will cost $43.36 + tax, that is a ballpark savings of $144.80 per year. That is huge!!!!

I should have switched a long time ago, but I was so skeptical. I am running low on my "homemade" laundry detergent, that is actually safe for your washing machine and septic system (if you have one). That has saved me more than I ever imagined, I will post about it soon, with the recipe. I just want to use up the last little bit I have on hand first, before I go buy the supplies to make more.

We don't have any skin conditions or allergies to products in our home, so if you want to try it out, and you are not sure how it could affect members of your household, maybe just buy a small bottle before you commit to the Sam's Club size. I would hate for it to cause a reaction and then you are stuck posting the rest of the huge bottle you bought on your local Facebook Buy Nothing Group.

09/09/2025

Our Highway Hero, got HUGE NEWS today!!! He started his regional job in late May, he watched this job for nine solid months, but they never had an opening. We prayed so hard all the time that there would be an opening. They finally posted an one, he applied for it less than 15 minutes after it opened, and he was third in line, but the two people in front of him didn't answer their phones, so Jeremy got it! It is one of the best CDL jobs in San Antonio, a career place where if you get on, you don't leave. They started him on overnights, he would go in at 5:30pm and be home at 7:30am the next morning. It was brutal, but so worth it. The checks are fantastic, but trying to sleep during the day when you have two little wild child boys isn't ideal. It was really wearing on him physically.

Usually drivers stay on the overnight shift for up to a year, with nine months being the average before they are promoted to the day shift, we knew that going into it and braced for that. At church on Sunday he prayed that there would be a day shift opening, on the same route he is on now (which has the most miles per week). He just received the text message today from his dispatcher, he got called up to day shift!!!!! On the same route he is on now. He starts the shift change on Monday at 10:00am. They were so impressed with his driver safety score, and always picking up extra yard work or driving shifts that they promoted him early. He has a 99% safety score, it would be 100% , but he hit his head so hard getting into the truck one time it triggered an event on the safety equipment....only my husband I swear 🤣.

God is so good! We cannot believe how much we have been blessed, and we are so humbled and thankful. When he told us at dinner tonight before he left, all the kids started freaking out, to be honest I did too! What an amazing day!

The Socially Awkward Mom

09/29/2025

09/29/2025

09/27/2025

09/27/2025

09/26/2025

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