Cheap But Excellent Getaway at the La Mesa Eco Park!

Are you looking for a nice pre-back-to-school gimmick with your family? Why not try the La Mesa Eco Park at Quezon City. We have been there a few months back and it was really worth a visit or two if you're looking for a getaway in the city. Not only are you amusing yourselves with a piece of nature, but you are also contributing to the welfare of the La Mesa Watershed!

Posing at the Shell Flower Terraces

The entrance path to La Mesa Eco Park

Resting under the shade of a tree a good picnic

Ella, enjoying a close encounter at the butterfly sanctuary

There are other things to do aside from site seeing like fishing, boating, horse back riding and swimming! Unfortunately, we weren't able to maximize our trip because we were just invited by hubby's parents right after a good night's work. Haha! But Ella had a good time so everything was all worth it!

Visit the website of La Mesa Eco Park for more details and schedule a trip for a cause today!

your every woman,

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How to Keep Your Meats Fresh

Hi! If you've noticed, I have some recipe's here didn't include marinade in them. That's because I have a different way of shopping for food. Since I am a career woman aside from being a mom and wife, I budget and buy all the meat, fish and poultry I'm gonna need for all my recipes for 2 weeks! So how do I keep them fresh? Here's something I am very thankful to my grandma for showing me when I was young...

1. Have the sales assistants cut your meat, fish and poultry to suit all your recipes for a given period of time.

2. When you get home after your market trip, prepare all ingredients you need to marinate and seal the flavor of your recipe and add them to your meat, fish and poultry before storing in the fridge.

3. Some marinades I use for my cooking:

DAING NA BANGUS
-minced garlic, salt, pepper and vinegar

LIVER STEAK
-soy sauce and calamansi

BAKED/ROAST CHICKEN, CHICKEN OR PORK BARBECUE, CHILI WINGS
-minced garlic, salt, sugar, pepper, tomato paste, orange/calamansi juice/sprite/7-up

FRIED FISH
-minced garlic, salt, pepper

FRIED CHICKEN
-salt, pepper, calamansi

For every recipe, the staple marinading ingredients would be salt and pepper. It's up to you to decide which flavor you'd like to lock in and add them into your marinade. Preparing your meat, fish and poultry this way saves you the time of marinading on the spot.

Happy cooking!

your every woman,

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How to Maximize Your Salary

For someone who doesn't have a family business, it's very difficult to budget one salary to reach the next isn't it? That is one major problem we've had as a young family. We decided not to live in either parents' house because we wanted to run our family on our own. Never mind the additional expenses of renting...It's better than a lost relationship!

Anyway, the things on my list are, rent, electricity, water, nanny pay, groceries, daily work allowance and transportation, Ella's milk and diapers, and tons of miscellaneous! So what's a mom to do? It's a good thing we both have work, but what about the other families out there? Well...of course, one is to have a really good side business (which I'm seriously thinking about having...) and another is careful and scrutinuous budgeting.

So for me, budgetting has become a science. I can't say that I don't run out of money, but these tip surely helped us live a somewhat comfortable life...hope it does for you too!

1. Write down all the things that are lacking or needs replacement in the house. This way, you prevent future unnecessary trips to the supermarket just to get them.

2. Make a WRITTEN menu of what you and your family would like to eat for the next couple of days and take note of the ingredients with the exact measurements. This should help you determine the things you really need when you hit the grocery.

3. Have a budget ready for a family weekend. You may not be planning one now, but who knows when the dad or the little one asks for one? Either they'd be disappointed by not being able to go because of lack of money, or there'd be a sudden difference in your budget if you obliged.

4. Plan big purchases ahead. If your planning to get one of those LCD tvs or that spin-dry washing machine, then make sure to plan it for when it is most "squeezable" in your budget . Since we're talking about salary, you most probably have a clear assumption of when you will be paid the most.

5. Buy in bulk. You not only do you save more but the supply will be enough for succeeding pay days, leaving you with extra money for that big purchase.

6. Save! Save! Save as much as you can in the bank, your personal vault, or a passbook account that would be more difficult to withdraw.

Do you have any budget saving tips? Please know!

your every woman,

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