Budget Savvy Lifestyle

Aldi Recipe: Gourmet Chicken Casserole

January 26, 2022

Today I have a cheap and easy Aldi recipe to share with you! My mom used to make this a lot when I was younger and it is now a favorite in our household with my husband and kids. This Gourmet Chicken Casserole is affordable and satisfying. It’s a great recipe for a comforting Sunday evening dinner and is a great option when you want to feed a crowd because it is easily scalable and costs about $1 per serving.

Gourmet Chicken Casserole Ingredients and Cost Analysis

6 pieces boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 2 lbs worth) $4.00
6 slices cheddar cheese $0.98
1 box stuffing mix, any flavor (I like to use cornbread) $0.69
1 can cream of mushroom soup, 10.5 oz size $0.50
1/2 cup milk $0.10
2 tbsp mayonnaise $0.05

Total cost: $6.32 for 6 servings About $1.05 per serving! *Prices are based on buying the ingredients from Aldi.

This is an easy recipe to make. It takes less than 10 minutes to prepare it and just 35 – 40 minutes to bake it.

Full instructions for making the casserole are below in the recipe card but it is as simple as placing the pieces of chicken breast in a casserole dish, placing a slice of cheese on top of each piece of chicken, mixing the remaining ingredients together to make the stuffing, and spooning some on top of each of the cheese covered chicken breasts. Easy peasy! 🙂

Print Recipe

Gourmet Chicken Casserole

This is a quick and easy cassserole that is satisfying and affordable to make. My mom used to make it all the time when I was younger. It's a good meal when you want to feed a crowd on a budget because it's easily scalable.

Prep Time10

Cook Time40

Total Time50

Servings: 6

Cost: $6.32

Ingredients

6 boneless chicken breasts I used 2 lbs of chicken breasts. It was 3 breasts which I cut into 2 pieces each.
6 slices cheddar cheese
1 box stuffing mix (like Stovetop) You can use any flavor stuffing mix. We prefer the cornbread.
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp mayonaisse

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Place chicken breast pieces in a 9 X 13 casserole dish
Place a slice of the cheddar cheese on top of each piece of chicken
In a bowl, mix together the stuffing mix, soup, milk and mayonaisse until it is well combined
Evenly spoon the stuffing mixture on top of the pieces of chicken
Cover the casserole dishe with foil and place in the oven
Bake for 35-45 minutes. Cook time will vary based on the size and thickness of your chicken breasts.

Notes

Serving suggestions:

Serve with a tossed salad or some steamed or sautéed veggies. We like it with green beans or asparagus.

Serving Suggestions to go with the Gourmet Chicken Casserole

Looking for ideas for sides to go with your Gourmet Chicken Casserole? Here’s some ideas:

Tossed Salad
Green Beans
Asparagus
Brussel Sprouts
Corn on the Cob
Butternut Squash
Peas and Carrots
Dinner Rolls
Fresh Fruit
Fruit Salad

Disney World Genie Plus – Is it Worth the Money? + the Best Magic Kingdom Genie Plus Strategy

January 25, 2022

You may be wondering if Disney’s Genie Plus is worth the money or what would be a good Genie Plus strategy if you do decide to purchase Disney’s new skip the line program.

I’m going to share with you today our experience with the Genie Plus program and our Magic Kingdom Genie Plus strategy as well as whether we thought Genie Plus was worth it and which parks you will benefit from it most at.

What we were able to ride in a day with Genie Plus

We were at the park from 9:00am to 8:00pm on a very busy day. Park reservations were all booked up. It was January 2nd. A Sunday and the tail end of the Christmas/New Year’s week so a very busy time for visiting Walt Disney World. We normally do five park days when we do a WDW trip but this time we were spending part of our vacation visiting other parts of the state of Florida including Big Cypress National Park, the Keys, and Kennedy Space Center. So we only had time in our agenda for two park days, one at Magic Kingdom and one at EPCOT and we knew we wouldn’t be able to get as much done as we normally do in a trip. It seemed a good time to invest in Genie Plus to maximize the amount of things we could accomplish in a park day.

Genie Plus, if you aren’t already familiar with it, is Disney’s new ride program for the parks. It costs $15 per person and allows you to reserve scheduled times to get into a Lightning Lane for a ride or attraction. The Lightning Lane wait times are usually significantly shorter than the standby line wait times. It can save you a tremendous amount of time and allow you to get a lot more done during the course of the day. The downside of course is the cost. There were 3 of us on this trip (my husband, myself, and our younger son), so it cost us an additional $45 plus tax a day to add the Genie Plus to our tickets.

What we rode with Genie Plus at Magic Kingdom in a Day

Splash Mountain (rode this twice with Genie Plus – explanation of why this happened is below)
Pirates of the Caribbean
Jungle Cruise
Mad Tea Party
Monsters Inc Laugh Floor
Small World
Tomorrowland Speedway
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

We filled in our time between Genie Plus reservations with shows and with rides that had reasonable wait times. We also did some shopping, some snacking, and had a dining reservation at 3:30 at The Crystal Palace. That took up about an hour of our day.

Here’s what we rode and saw without Genie Plus reservations:

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Haunted Mansion
Pirates of the Caribbean
Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room
Country Bears Jamboree
The Carousel of Progress
Mickey’s PhilharMagic

Our Genie Plus Strategy for Magic Kingdom

Having been to Walt Disney World five times since 2016 prior to this trip and having used WDW’s Fast Past program on past trips, we had a pretty good idea on this trip of how to strategize when it comes to choosing which rides to ride when and how to book rides in Genie Plus to make sure we were not only getting the most out of it, but also making sure we got on everything we were hoping to.

Like we had to with the Fast Pass Program, we figured out that we would need to prioritize the most popular rides early in the day. That’s because as the day goes on, the reservation times for these rides become later and later in the day and eventually become no longer available. Ideally, you want to have one Genie Plus reservation after another with little to no time gaps between when one reservation is used and the timeframe for another one begins.

This is hard to do though with the most popular rides as they quickly book up for the day. So we book the one we most want to go on for our first reservation of the day and then rope drop one or two of the other most popular rides. We then fill in with other rides with short lines while we wait for our first Genie Plus reservation to be available. This trip, we were able to book the Jungle Cruise for 10:20 so we headed right to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at rope drop and then rode Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion. After Haunted Mansion, we had a snack (a Chesire Cat Tail for our son and spring rolls for my husband and I. If you haven’t tried either, you should…they’re amazing!). After our snack, it was time for our Jungle Cruise window.

Rides that are most and least popular to book in the Genie Plus App:

These are the rides that seem to be most popular for Genie Plus reservations

Jungle Cruise
Splash Mountain
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Peter Pan’s Flight

These are the rides you might want to consider grabbing first thing because the times for these get booked further out as the day goes on and then eventually become entirely booked up before the day is over.

Rides that are moderately popular for Genie Plus reservations

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Haunted Mansion
Pirates of the Caribbean
Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin

Rides/Atrractions that are normally easier to get Genie Plus for (save these for the later part of the day)

Dumbo the Flying Elephant
Mad Tea Party
The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
The Barnstormer
Monsters Inc Laugh Floor
Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid
Small World
Tomorrowland Speedway
Mickey’s PhilharMagic

There are 2 rides that aren’t included with the Genie Plus pass but are available for individual Genie Plus purchase at Magic Kingdom:

Seven Dwarves Mine Train
Space Mountain

From a budget standpoint, buying these individual rides doesn’t make a lot of financial sense for us. It costs $7 a person to ride Space Mountain. That’s $28 + tax for our whole family when the 4 of us make the trip. The line for Space Mountain rarely exceeds 60 minutes and you can often catch it at 30-45 minutes if you keep an eye out so to us it just isn’t worth the time saved for that amount of money.

Seven Dwarves Mine Train is even more expensive. It’s $11 per person to ride, so $44+tax for a family of 4. The wait time for that ride is often 75 minutes and it rarely gets better than that. However, I will glad wait that amount of time to save $44+. This is just personal choice. Some people may feel it is worthwhile to not stand in line. For us, the return on investment just isn’t worth it.

A Peek at Magic Kingdom Standby Waits and Genie Plus Reservation Times

Below are some screenshots of Magic Kingdom standby wait times one recent morning. It was almost 11:00 am (Florida time) and as you can see, some of the Genie Plus reservations are already booking in the afternoon and evening. This will help give you an idea of what rides are most popular and need to be booked early in the day if you want to take advantage of riding them with Genie Plus!

Did Genie Plus Drastically Cut Ride Wait Times?

Yes, most of the rides where we used the Genie Plus the Lightning Lane got us on the ride within 5-10 minutes. One exception to that was the second time we rode Splash Mountain with it. Normally, you can only use Genie Plus once per ride. We had already rode Splash Mountain and had a Genie Plus reservation for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We received a notification through the app that Big Thunder was down during our Genie Plus reservation time and we could use the reservation to get on another ride. Not every Genie Plus ride was offered but we had the option to choose from about 10 rides.

Our son really wanted to go on Splash Mountain again so we went on that. We waited in the Lightning Lane about 20 minutes that time to get on Splash Mountain. That was still significantly shorter than the 60 minute estimated wait in the standby line.

I estimate that Genie Plus saved us 4-5 hours of waiting in line over the course of the day at Magic Kingdom which is actually pretty good. We definitely were able to get a lot more done than we would have been able to accomplish without the Genie Plus. On a slower park day, it might not be worth it but on a busy one it was definitely a huge time saver! I should add that it seems as of lately that there is no such thing as a slow park day at Walt Disney World. My husband and I have the Walt Disney World Park app on our phones and regularly check wait times throughout the day. We also frequently have YouTube WDW live streams on during the day in our home office when we are working from home. We have noticed since the start of the Walt Disney World 50th Anniversary Celebration in October, the parks have become increasingly busier and there never really seems to be a light crowd at any of the parks anymore.

Photo Pass Lenses

Genie Plus also entitles you to some fun photo pass lenses. We had a good time playing around with these. Some of our favorites put Mickey in the picture with us, turned us into a Disney villain, and created a photo booth type pic.

Another cool one turned the castle back to a specific year if you used it in front of the castle. 1970 showed it under construction and if you went to 1996, the castle was done up for the 25th anniversary.

Here are a few of the pics we took with photo pass:

Our Final Thoughts on Genie Plus at Each Park

It is a Good Value at Magic Kingdom

This is our second time using Genie Plus at Magic Kingdom. My husband and I used it in October on a couple’s trip that he and I took to WDW right after the 50th Anniversary celebration started. This was the week that Genie Plus was rolled out. I didn’t keep specific data from what we rode with Genie Plus on that trip but I do remember that we got on significantly more rides on our Magic Kingdom day with Genie Plus than we did on our two Magic Kingdom days without it.

There are a LOT of rides and attractions included in the Genie Plus at Magic Kingdom so it is very easy to keep getting back to back Genie Plus reservations and really make the most of it if you plan right.

Just book the most popular rides for early in the day and then rope drop rides that have short lines or get busy as the day goes on while you wait for you Genie Plusreservation. If 2 hours has passed since you made a reservation and you haven’t used it yet because it’s for a later time, you will be allowed to make a second Genie Plus reservation. (Note: if the first reservation was made at 7:00 that morning when the reservation system opens up for Genie Plus, your two hours doesn’t start until the park opens for the day. So if the park opens for the day at 9:00 and you made an 11:30 Jungle Cruise reservation, you can make a second Genie Plus reservation at 11:00)

Genie Plus is Not Worth the Money at EPCOT

This was our only time using Genie Plus at EPCOT. In our opinion it wasn’t worth it at EPCOT, at least for us. EPCOT just doesn’t have as many rides and many of them don’t have long wait times to get on if you strategize right and ride them at the right time of the day.

Two of the rides with the most consistently long wait times at EPCOT, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and Frozen Ever After, aren’t even included with the standard Genie Plus purchase and are additional pay per ride Genie Plus purchases. Out of the rides that you can get on with Genie Plus, Test Track, Soarin’, and maybe Mission Space are the only ones that might have long waits.

We often rope drop Soarin’ and are able to get on it right away and my husband gets motion sickness from Mission Space so we don’t ride it. That just leaves us Test Track. It’s not worth it to us to pay $15 a person to save us a one hour wait in line. If you could ride each Genie Plus ride as often as you wanted then I would say “Yes, it is worth it at EPCOT.” But until Disney changes this rule (if they ever decide to) it is just hard to feel like we are getting our money’s worth at EPCOT with Genie Plus.

Probably Genie Plus is Probably Not Worth the Money at Animal Kingdom

We haven’t tested Genie Plus at Animal Kingdom but we can safely assume that it will not be worth the money to us to ever utilize it there. We have never spend an entire day at Animal Kingdom. We are usually done by 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon. And in that time, we often manage to do just about everything there is to do in the park.

Animal Kingdom is another park where there aren’t many rides. The one ride with the most significantly long wait time (often exceeding 2 hours), Avatar’s Flight of Passage. Isn’t even included in the standard Genie Plus. It is a per pay ride Genie Plus purchase.

This is another park that if you strategize and hit the rides at the right time, you can often find pockets of time throughout the day where the wait times (except for Flight of Passage) aren’t too bad so the Genie Plus really isn’t a needed expense to get everything done unless you don’t feel like waiting in lines.

I guess a good strategy for this park, if you really want to reduce some of your time waiting in line, would be to skip the standard Genie Plus and just purchase the Avatar Flight of Passage Genie Plus. This could easily save you two hours or more of your day. We usually rope drop the Kilimanjaro Safaris or the Naʻvi River Journey at Animal Kingdom. These are two rides that normally get an hour wait time as the day goes on.

DINOSAUR and Expedition Everest can have a bit of a wait time throughout the day but if you keep an eye on the app, you can usually catch a lull at some point. We usually do shows and visit some of the animal exhibits in between doing rides and just keep an eye out for a short ride line.

May or May Not Be Worth It at Hollywood Studios

We haven’t used Genie Plus at Hollywood Studios. Our past three trips to Walt Disney World we haven’t gone to Hollywood Studios. This is a park that has never really held much appeal for us. The lines are ALWAYS long and there just isn’t enough to do. A lot of the shows there just hold very little interest to us. This park is always crowded and it feels like it has no shade and very few places to sit and just relax.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but after using a park day on Hollywood Studios on our first three Walt Disney World trips we decided to eliminate going there on the three most recent trips. We usually would leave the park by 3:00pm bored, disappointed, and unwilling to face any more endless lines. And as the price of Disney park tickets continues to increase, we have decided that for the time being Hollywood Studios just isn’t a good return on investment for our family.

This is a shame because it does have some great things to offer. If you have never eaten at the Sci Fi Dine In, I highly recommend it. We love Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Train and Slinky Dog Dash. Toy Story Mania is far superior to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and the Muppet 3D Vision is always a good time. But that’s about it for us. We aren’t overly interested in Star Wars. We’ve done the rides and they are good and the land theming is amazing but the long lines aren’t worth our time. Maybe Genie Plus will help with this? But Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance isn’t offered through the standard Genie Plus and neither is Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Train. If Hollywood Studios is on your must do list, then Genie Plus might be a worthwhile investment because in our experience it is the park that you can most consistently count on to always have a LOT of really high wait times that never seem to dissipate no matter what time of the day it is.

To help you decide if Genie Plus is worth it for you at Hollywood Studios, I took a look at my app this morning. It is 10:00am on a Friday morning and here are the wait times for rides that you can use Genie Plus on at Hollywood Studios:

Alien Swirling Saucers – 40 minutes
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – 45 minutes
Rock N’ Roller Coaster – 60 minutes
Star Tours – The Adventure Continues – 35 minutes
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – 85 minutes
Toy Story Mania – 50 minutes

And in our experience, these wait times will not get better as the day goes on. If you plan on riding several or most of these rides, then the Genie Plus may be worthwhile at Hollywood Studios and will likely save you a great deal of time. Genie Plus at Hollywood Studios can also be used for some of the shows.

A Note on Individual Genie Plus Ride Purchases

We have never made an individual ride purchase for Genie Plus but if you plan to, I recommend doing it first thing in the day…at 7:00 am when they become available, if possible! I’ve noticed that some of these rides become unavailable fairly early in the day. Here’s a list of the individual rides you can purchase at each park:

Magic Kingdom

Seven Dwarves Mine Train
Space Mountain

EPCOT

Frozen Ever After
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure

Hollywood Studios

Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance

Animal Kingdom

Avatar Flight of Passage

So there you have it. Our opinion on where Genie Plus is worth the price and where it isn’t!

You may also want to check out:

8 Tips to Help You Do Disney World on a Budget

Have you used Genie Plus at any of the Disney Parks? If so, what did you think? Was it worth the price? Let me know in the comments 🙂

What is the Best Meal Plan?

January 14, 2022

What is the best meal plan?

This is a question that often gets asked when the subject of meal planning comes up. I think the answer to this is pretty simple. The best meal plan is a plan that you are going to be able to easily implement and that works for you, your family, and your budget.

There are several things to consider when coming up with the best meal plan for you and your family…..

#1 What are your family's dietary needs, food preferences, and goals?

What is the Best Meal Plan? Consider Dietary Needs and Preferences

Each family is going have very different dietary needs, food preferences, and goals. If you are trying to eat healthy then you are likely going to have a lot of fresh produce and lean proteins on your meal plan. If you are avoiding meat or dairy, that will also influence things. Dietary choices and preferences are very personal and are definitely not a one size fits all situation.

If you have family member with special dietary needs, this will also shape what your best meal plan is going to look like. My sons both had food allergies so we have to avoid foods with peanuts, tree nuts and sesame seeds. A lot of people have to avoid gluten or dairy.

A third consideration is what type of tastes your family has. What are your favorite meals? It’s best to make meals that you know your family will willingly consume :-). I have a regular rotation of meals that I know the family won’t complain about.

I am also careful not to plan casseroles or other recipes that produce a lot of leftovers if I know that my husband and kids don’t love it and will be less inclined to eat the leftovers. I’m always looking for ways to maximize the grocery budget and minimize food waste and careful meal planning is an important part of making those two things happen!

This is why I recommend keeping a meal planning notebook or binder with all of your family’s favorite meals. It can really be a huge time saver when you are creating your meal plan.

#2 - What is the budget you are hoping to stay within?

Your Grocery Budget Will Impact Your Meal Plan

Your grocery budget is a very important factor when meal planning. If you are looking to be frugal with your grocery budget, then you aren’t going to want to be adding a lot of steak and seafood to your meal plan. In fact, those things would have no place on a frugal budget. Instead you might want to include a lot of rice, potato and pasta based dishes with inexpensive protein options like chicken, tuna, beans, and eggs.

This is another instance where having a meal planning notebook is really beneficial. In my meal planning notebook, I like to put the estimated cost it takes to make a recipe or meal so that I can factor that in when planning our weekly meal plan. Of course with the pandemic and the inflation that is going on right now, prices are always changing but at least it gives me a general target to aim for!

#3 - How much time do you have to make a meal?

The Amount of Meal Prep Time You Have Will Help You Make Meal Planning Decisions

Planning a complex meal for a weeknight when you have limited spare time on your hands is just setting yourself up for failure.

Take into consideration what your weekly schedule looks like when you sit down to create your meal plan for the week.

If you have some busy evenings, make sure to account for that by either planning some quick and easy meals for those nights or doing some weekend meal prep before the week begins.

This can mean throwing together a freezer meal or casserole that can easily be thrown in the oven on busy nights or doing some of the steps for the recipe such as browning ground beef ahead of time for tacos or chopping and bagging vegetables that will go in a recipe.

A slow cooker can also be a lifesaver on busy days because you can throw everything in that morning and usually have minimal prep left when you return home in the evening.

I suggest coming up with a list of at least 10-15 busy day meals that you and your family love to add to your meal planning notebook. This is enough to rotate that you won’t get burned out on your favorite meals for busy days!

#4 - What is on sale that week?

The Best Meal Plan Will Include Sales Items

The best meal plan will also include some meals based on the best sales that week at your preferred grocery store. This will help you cut down on your grocery budget for the week. Meal planning around what is on sale is one of the easiest ways to keep your grocery expenses in check.

The loss leaders, which are the items displayed on the front page of your grocery store’s weekly ad, is a good place to start. These are almost always the best deals to be had that week.

If you are new to meal planning, you might want to start keeping track of the prices of items that you commonly buy. That way you will begin to get a feel of whether a sale is actually a good deal or not.

If it’s a really good deal, you might even want to stock up a little if saving money is one of your main motivations for meal planning. When I see a good sale on an item, I will often buy as much as I think I will need of the item for at least a month because that is about how long it takes for most sales I see to cycle back around.

#5 - What is in Season?

A final thing to include when coming up with the best possible meal plan is seasonal items. This has double benefits.

First, it saves you money to buy grocery items that are in season versus items that are not. Fresh produce especially is very seasonal and you will find that you can find amazing deals on the fruits and vegetables that are in season. Berries, melons and stone fruits are super cheap in the summer months. Apples and squash in the fall. Citrus in the winter, and so on.

Second, it keeps the meal plan from becoming to monotonous. When you change the produce you use with meals to meet the seasons, you will keep your menu fresh by having different offerings every few months.

In Summary: What is the Best Meal Plan?

In summary, the best meal plan is going to be the one that works for you, your family and your budget. One that you will be able to implement and that meets your nutritional needs and personal preferences.

If you are trying to stay on budget, you will want to make sure you have a meal planning binder or notebook full of budget friendly options that you and your family like.

If you have a busy lifestyle that doesn’t allow much time for preparing meals, you will want to have a list of quick and easy meals you can make for your busy nights. You could also come up with meals that you can prep ahead of time on your days off.

No matter what tactics you choose to implement, having a meal plan can save you time and money as well as making it easier for your family to reach any healthy eating lifestyle goals you have.

Determine what requirements are important to you when it comes to meal planning and then be sure to set aside some time each week to create a meal plan that meets those needs.

Aldi Recipe: Gourmet Chicken Casserole

Gourmet Chicken Casserole Ingredients and Cost Analysis