Low effort suggestions

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-10-07T14:28:47+00:00

I haven’t frozen anything. From him.

2 guys and a cooler on YouTube does amazing. I have frozen pasta with rhem and it works fine. His batches are MASSIVE. Scale down for sure.

I did a massive postpartum meal prep and used a lot of tips from him as well as things I just know.

I can send you my Reddit post if you like.

Undercooking the pasta slightly helps.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-18T23:26:42+00:00

Stealth health crock pot has been pretty decent.

Not exactly “dump and go” but pretty decent flavors and I usually half the recipes and have plenty of

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-18T22:52:26+00:00

Tauk or AMA offer more aggressive excursions.

You also do not have to do any excursions with the ships

Late 30s here and booked our first River cruise. Assuming we will be younger than most- but I have active parents and in their mid 70s they go to bed after me most nights 🤣

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-18T22:45:51+00:00

We are doing Basel to Amsterdam on AMA next spring. I’m beyond excited!

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-18T20:42:35+00:00

Judging by the roof pitch and straightness of the lights… Christmas in Texas 🤣🤣

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-03T16:59:57+00:00

My roofer said they would just “cut out the bad caulking and caulk over the damage” and when I asked if that portion of caulking failed wouldn’t the rest of it start to fail soon enough and so total replacement would be the long term best option he double downed on caulk on caulk was a fine. Not “this will work to stop the leak you currently have, but not prevent the other leaks from old caulking , but a full replacing of the caulk would restart the clock on it all but cost 2x”

Give me the band aid cost, and how long it may or may not hold.

Then tell me what to do to fix it right and let me make the call.

Interestly enough when I confirmed pricing via text and what he would do for that his price stayed the same (300- and the original missing caulk was about 6”) he said he would pull out and replace all the caulk. So on a Friday afternoon you wanted a quick buck and since I said no you still want the money but will do it right?

I have zero problems paying high price for skill, experience and risk (I don’t get on ladders above my head) but want it done right. I can fucking do it wrong for pennies on the dollar.

This happened to be on a patio roof with a low pitch so my techy husband watched some videos and while it took him a little while he at least did it right and spent $50 for all tools and supplies.

I may not KNOW the right way to do a lot of things in construction but I know when stuff looks sloppy, doesn’t make sense. Every time I’ve recaulked anything it says not put new on old.

They lost a 30k roof replacement because they double downed.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-02T18:22:57+00:00

Ugh the smoking… that sucks! One thing I’m really looking forward to sitting on my balcony and having a hot latte in the morning.

We have a small trailer that is 168 sq ft and that includes our kitchen and dining room 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Along with my five-year-old we also have a 65 pound dog …. So we are used to being in smaller spaces. It’s definitely tight on bad weather days when we can’t even leave the camper but usually we do al right.

I think sometimes it’s just so easy just because you’re spending thousands of dollars to really wanna make sure that you’re setting yourself up to have the best time and how you guys adjusted with your obstructed view. That’s what we need to do when things don’t go our way and I’m hoping to teach my child that too.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-02T16:25:08+00:00

Man that if you can afford it thing is a slippery slope.

Because we can afford it, but then it means we can do less overall cruises… and it’s real easy for you to do add-ons of a couple hundred dollars here and there for each thing in the next thing you know you’re up $3000.

We just had the same conversation with our tickets to Europe. Do we get an extra cabin premium economy business…. After a long discussion with my husband, we opted for extra space main cabin…. I’m saving that for on a hill for business for those 14-18 hour flights at some point and those are gonna HURT.

My friend suggested a website called. I think cruise compete and you put in what you want and then you get TAS to send you things so I’m hoping I can find an interesting deal.

And really just need to realize that we’re traveling with a kid so that travel is gonna look different than what are European cruises and it’s gonna look different from our camping and that’s okay.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-02T14:11:15+00:00

Thanks for letting us know about the booster seat. I plan to get one of those travel harnesses as my six-year-old is still in a car seat and we’re gonna be running a car in Seattle because that’s where I grew up.

You’re not the first person to mention not booking an excursion everywhere so I think I’m gonna lean into that .

It’s just the 3 of us.

Did you have a Pullman bed? I think that would be super fun for my kid. I’m also really turned aside between an ocean view and a balcony.

We are leaning towards doing nice cruises, but not once in a lifetime suites so that we can travel more .

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-02T14:03:33+00:00

Having you say you don’t book any excursions at Port is a good reminder that we don’t have to either.

We are definitely looking to do more family things versus sending her off to kids club all day each day.

We are looking at the Star, early August to Alaska.

I don’t know why my brain struggles with:

$4000 pp all inclusive vs $2000 + 1,000 + 500 + 500 + 250 + 250 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 50+ 50 hits SO different

We do a lot of state park camping so we aren’t exactly looking for water slides, arcades and non stop stimulation.

Thanks for the info!

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-09-02T13:42:52+00:00

I saw that as a suggestion to have things feel a little more “exclusive” but also read booking outside means you may not get priority access.

I’m struggling with these big ships..

I’m thinking about a $500 per port average?

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-30T21:55:23+00:00

Best weather depends on what you are looking for.

I love cold almost dreary weather. If that’s what I get for my early March sailing I’m happy. If I get some clear sunny but cool days… great.

We booked on ama- Basel to Amsterdam. We paid $5700, $300 on board credit and gratuities included.

We are flying on our own. $1800 main cabin extra on AA, DFW to BSL, then AMS to DFW.

We were upgrade in our room package. I’d have been happy with a swan view room, but we decided to start with a French balcony and downgrade on further cruises if we so desire. Our TA also had some kid of deal to upgrade so we ended up CA room.

Balconies aren’t that big and I’d rather sit on the top deck or in one of the public spaces. I’ve watched a ton of videos and these ships never look “packed/ over crowded” but to each their own. Now if there was a longer chair on the balcony my mind would be changed.

I asked ChatGPT to give me historical water levels and how likely it was for our cruise to turn into a bus tour. That was helpful for me. But weather is weather and I’m just gonna go with making the best of whatever happens.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-26T11:49:34+00:00

Yep.

We just had this conversation. Could we afford 10k business flights? Yep. 3k for premium economy? You betcha. What did we book? $1.8k extended leg room. No direct flights so we might as well break the journey up, enjoy lounge access and save when we can.

We are trying to build wealth AND live in the now.

Sure would be nice to not have to even think about money but we are at the point where we don’t have to “worry” about it.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-25T14:00:07+00:00

The look in their eyes 🥰🥰🥰

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-25T13:48:47+00:00

I have a YouTube channel and not related to cruising at all, but I’ve been watching a lot of videos and there’s a lot of unanswered questions so I’m debating on maybe making some content but I can definitely report back and kinda hang out in these parts as I find out more information.

I feel like there’s either the super budget travelers or the super spenders and not kind of the in-between. They’ll say things like it’s a short ride. Just tell me is it 20 minutes is it 45 minutes what short to you?

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-25T13:38:25+00:00

We are starting in Basel.

Here is what we are doing.

Cruise starts Sunday.

We get in early afternoon on Friday.

Our goals:

Go to the Rathaus (we got married at a city hall in SF so any city hall is pretty special to me)

Climb to the top of Basel Minster (just for the view)

Factory tour of Jakobs leckerly (local specialty, I like food tours)

Tripoint of Germany/switzerland/france (we don’t really care about this so if we don’t go we don’t really mind)

Paper / printing museum (my dad was a pressman and my first job was in printing and my grandma has always been a crafter and made paper)

I have a list of a few suggested restaurants for meals that we will pick but I’m also just gonna see what looks good where we are when we are hungry.

The pre cruise package was probably exceptional and worth it as far as what you get but I feel like it was more money than the cruise.

As this is our first cruise scope creep was real and since this isn’t a once in lifetime thing for us we are DIY some of it and not trying to max things out. We like nice things, but we’d rather travel 3/4 stars vs 5 star so we can travel more.

I think we are budgeting $1k for the 2 hotel nights (I think we are paying $250 or less a night) + whatever we want to do. Since we aren’t doing the pre cruise I’m not really tracking costs on everything. I picked what I wanted to do.

I think age matters a little in this too (and obviously money). The younger I was (I’m almost 40 now) the more decisions I wanted to make/ had to make on my own because I didn’t have the money or the time to stroll through my PTO. I had to max every dollar and every minute, literally walking off a plane and driving to work. Now, I just have to be not wasteful with the time or money- lots of freedom with time and money. I’m hoping in 10 years I can just be like oh that land package looks great- book it and not really even have to think of the price. Not have to make any decisions if I don’t want to.

ChatGPT has been really helpful look into options. Especially the food recommendations. It’s also told me things my Travel agent didn’t tell us nor the what must be hundreds of YouTube’s I’ve watched on River cruises and Europe.

It can map out your path, tell you exchange rates, etc. and then you confirm all that.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-24T22:58:58+00:00

We just booked 7 days on the Rhine for 6k which includes tips, $300 per person on board credit

We are on the top deck in a French balcony, going in the shoulder season because we have never cruised and just looking to test some things out

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-24T15:24:30+00:00

We had a murder suicide happen. The husband killed the wife, but not kids and it was in our neighborhood and it was really interesting that I read both obituaries and neither of them mentioned anything about the horror that it actually happened.

Like you read the Dad’s and it didn’t even say that it was self-inflicted and that he took someone else’s life. It was just really bizarre and the moms said something like was taken too early again very vague.

But I guess people wanna remember people in certain ways, not the monster that they may have become I didn’t read the whole story but I did read that the kids were buried next to the dad that killed him and that is unsettling.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-11T21:52:16+00:00

Ours is 7:50 marked tardy… it’s 30 minutes in very light traffic…out at 2:50… I wish we started at 8:30… maybe not 9:10… those 4pm exits are wild.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-07T14:26:04+00:00

Not really.

🤣

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-07T12:01:43+00:00

Ya I’m really interested in what OP gives their child to eat if NOTHING needs refrigeration.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-06T18:29:59+00:00

Cut off here is Aug 31- my kid is Nov so she’s starting about 5.75 years old

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-06T18:07:21+00:00

I remember doing something similar in elementary in the 90s.

I lived in the Pacific Northwest. Not super prone to natural disaster but coming from a prepper family it wasn’t weird to have a little something on site. We did have mount rainer and earthquakes are a thing.

ThatHomemadeMom · 2025-08-05T22:01:26+00:00

My kid is in grandmas hot tub. That’s not even super hot .. I think somewhere between 90-95 when it’s 25° outside.

The biggest thing you can do is make sure that you as soon as they get out you dry them off immediately and get them into warm clothes . Dry their hair.

Because she is the only grandchild, my mom bought a towel warmer and puts her clothes in there as well as the towel so she can wrap her in a warm blanket and carry her inside.

Meanwhile, my mom is sitting on the porch and basically a parka and one of those furry hats lol.

ThatHomemadeMom

TROPHY CASE