Budget Savvy Lifestyle

Living your best life.....on a budget!

Meatball Sub Casserole Recipe

This easy and delicious Meatball Sub Casserole recipe is guaranteed to be a hit with the whole family!  It combines all the goodness of a meatball sub in the form of an easy to eat casserole.

With just 5 ingredients, this recipe is not only extremely easy to make, but also very affordable.  As written, it can feed a family of 4-5 for $6.42 (priced with ingredients from Aldi).  

Have a big family or expecting company?  It’s easy to double it and feed a crowd!

Easy 5 Ingredient Recipe

Here’s the price breakdown for the recipe if you buy the ingredients at Aldi:

1/2 bag frozen Italian style meatballs $2.15

1- 24 ounce jar of pasta sauce $0.85

1-10 ounce loaf of fresh garlic bread (found in the bakery area of Aldi) $2.09

1 cup of shredded Italian style cheese $1.00

1/4 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese $0.33

Print Recipe

Meatball Sub Casserole

This easy and inexpensive recipe uses frozen meatballs, garlic bread, pasta sauce, and shredded cheese to create a delicious meal the whole family will love!
Prep Time15 minutes
Cook Time45 minutes
Servings: 4 servings
Cost: $6.42

Ingredients

  • 1 loaf fresh garlic bread
  • 1 24 oz jar pasta sauce
  • 1/2 32 oz bag frozen Italian meatballs (32 meatballs0
  • 1 cup shredded Italian blend cheese
  • 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees
  • Place the garlic bread on a baking sheet with the spread facing up and bake for 5-7 minutes (or whatever time is recommended for the garlic bread you use)
  • While the garlic bread is baking, heat the pasta sauce and meatballs until the meatballs have thawed.
  • Set the oven to 350 degrees after the garlic bread comes out. Allow garlic bread to cool some and then cut it into squares.
  • Lay garlic bread pieces into a 2 quart casserole dish.
  • Spread meatball and pasta sauce mix over the top of the garlic bread.
  • Sprinkle the shredded cheeses over the top of the casserole.
  • Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Notes

*Recipe adapted from Allrecipes
* We like to serve this with a tossed salad or sautéed green beans!

Aldi Friendly Meal Plan for 4 – Week of February 22nd

This Aldi Friendly Meal Plan feeds our family of 4 (including two teenage boys with big appetites!) for the week.  

Because of our varying schedules, everyone fends for themselves for breakfast and lunch and I make dinner for us to eat together as a family.  We do our best to utilize leftovers and fresh produce right away so that nothing goes to waste!

Breakfast Options

  • Freezer Waffles
  • Oatmeal with frozen blueberries
  • Cereal
  • Toast
  • Eggs
  • Greek Yogurt

Served with clementines or bananas

Lunch Options

  • Ham and cheese sandwiches
  • Cheese Quesadillas
  • Greek Chicken Salads
  • Boxed Macaroni and Cheese
  • Corn Dogs
  • Leftovers

Served with the following fruit and vegetable options:

Cucumber slices, baby carrots, bell pepper slices, sautéed spinach, cherry tomatoes, apples, bananas, clementines, grapes

Dinners for the Week

  1. Pork Ribs, Cornbread, Baked Beans, and Steamed Broccoli
  2. Crescent Roll Taco Ring, Clementines
  3. Meatball Sub Casserole, Tossed Salad
  4. Cheeseburgers, French Fries, Pickles, Grapes
  5. Pork Chops, Roasted Potatoes, Steamed Corn, Applesauce
  6. Eggs, Freezer Pancakes, Aldi Breakfast Meatballs, Clementines
  7. Leftovers or Freezer Pizza and Salad (if we have enough leftovers, we will save the freezer pizzas for another time)

What’s on your meal plan this week?

Hoagie Bake Recipe

This Hoagie Bake Recipe is always a hit around our house.  It’s super simple to make and with 8 servings, it feeds our family of four for two meals.  

The recipe can be made entirely with Aldi ingredients.  If you shop Aldi, I did the cost analysis for it and it works out to $1.05 per serving.  This makes this recipe super budget friendly!

With salami, pepperoni, ham, provolone, and Swiss cheese sandwiched between crescent rolls, this is a delicious and filling  meal!

Here’s what you will need to add to your Aldi shopping:

  • 2  cans of crescent rolls
  • 1 pkg deli ham (I used smoked but honey would be fine too)
  • 1 pkg pepperoni slices (I used turkey because that’s all they had)
  • 1 pkg salami slices
  • shredded parmesan
  • 1 pkg provolone slices
  • 1 pkg swiss slices
  • 1 egg

 

Print Recipe

Hoagie Bake

This delicious hoagie bake sandwiches salami, pepperoni, ham, provolone and swiss cheeses between crescent rolls.
Prep Time10 minutes
Cook Time35 minutes
Servings: 8 servings
Cost: $8.43

Ingredients

  • 2 cans crescent rolls
  • 1/4 lb. sliced salami
  • 1/4 lb. pepperoni slices
  • 1/4 lb. sliced deli ham
  • 8 slices provolone cheese
  • 8 slices swiss cheese
  • 1 egg
  • 3 tbsp shredded parmesan cheese

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • Prepare a 9X13 casserole dish by spraying it with cooking spray
  • Spread one can of crescent rolls into the bottom of the dish, pressing seams together
  • Spread the salami on top the crescent rolls, followed by the ham, pepperoni, provolone, and swiss.
  • Spread the other can of crescent rolls over the top of the meat and cheese layers, pressing the seams together.
  • Beat the egg and then brush on top of the crescent rolls
  • Add the parmesan cheese
  • Bake in the oven for 25 minutes
  • Add foil and bake an additional 10 minutes

Notes

Tip: To reduce the greasiness of the recipe, you can spread the salami and pepperoni in thin layers on a paper towel covered plate and microwave them first for 30 seconds before adding them to the dish.
*Recipe adapted from here

8 Tips to Help You Do Disney World on a Budget

Going to Disney World is something we love to do as a family.  Because this is something that is important to all four of us, regular trips to Disney are something that is prioritized in our budget.  Doing Disney World on a budget is completely possible if you set realistic expectations.

Since we like to try and go at least once every two years, we make sure to be sensible about setting a strict budget for each trip and keeping costs down where we can.

This post may contain affiliate links. You can read my disclosure policy here.

#1 - Eat Breakfast Before You Head to the Parks

Eat breakfast before we head to the parks.  We eat breakfast in our hotel room or AirBnb before we head to the parks.  This saves us a lot of money and also allows us more time to do other things in the parks, instead of spending that time sitting in a restaurant eating.  

What we normally do is hit Aldi once we get to town and get the groceries we will need to have breakfast for the week.  

We often keep it simple…buying yogurt, fruit, and frozen breakfast bowls or sandwiches.  Sometimes I grab pastries and donuts for the kids as a treat.  After all, we are on vacation :-). 

In the past, when we stayed on Disney World property, we have brought our griddle from home and used it to heat sausage and freezer pancakes on.  I also boiled eggs at home and brought cheese sticks and instant oatmeal (to make in the microwave). 

The downside about a Disney property is that the more budget-friendly rooms only come with a small mini fridge so you are somewhat limited in what you can buy/bring when it comes to perishable foods.


#2 - Stay Off Property

We used to always stay on property. In all fairness, there is something to be said about being in the “Disney Bubble” the whole time you are there. 

However, over the years the prices of even the “budget” resorts on Disney World property have increased greatly. 

As an example, when we went in March of 2016,  we paid $136/night.  By the time we went in January 2019, it was about $150/night plus they had implemented a new rule charging resort guests at budget resorts $15/night to park at the hotel.  

So on our next trip we looked into the possibility of renting an AirBnb.  It was less than a 10 minute trip to Disney World and cost us less per night that a budget room on Disney property would have.  In fact, we saved over $300 for the week, even when taking into account that we now had to pay $25/day to park at the parks each day that we went (it’s free for Disney resort guests).  

On top of saving money, we had an entire house to ourselves.  Our boys each had their own bedroom and a bathroom to share and my husband and I were at the other end of the house in the master bedroom with our own bathroom. 

We also had our own private pool (pictured above) and an entire kitchen at our disposal which made it so much easier to make breakfast every day.  It was also nice to have our very own laundry room instead of having to use the resort’s laundromat.  We were able to do laundry every day which meant we could pack lighter. 

But the absolute biggest benefit was how much better we slept.  Being in a budget resort at Disney always means a lot of noise.  Whether it’s people in the rooms next to us or those walking by outside our door, we never had a night where we weren’t awakened by some noise. 

This was not the case at the AirBnb.  It was so peaceful and quiet and we woke up refreshed and well-rested every morning.  I don’t see a scenario right now were we will go back to staying on Disney property.


#3 - Pack Snacks and Water for the Park

When we go grocery shopping for our breakfast items, we also get bottled water and snacks to take with us to the parks. This limits the amount of snacks we buy at the park. 

Snacks we often buy include meat sticks, beef jerky, cheese sticks, snack-sized bags of chips, trail mix, apples, bananas, and clementines.  Yogurt tubes and boxes of raisins are also cheap and easy snacks we enjoy at the parks.

More Disney World Planning Articles:


#4 - Eat Only One Meal a Day at the Parks

Some people don’t eat at the parks at all, but for us meals in the park are something that we really look forward to so we always budget for one park meal per day.  We plan out in advance were we want to eat each day and budget what it will cost.  

The food in the park can be pricey, but the portions are always very generous.  Oftentimes, we can get 2-3 meals for the 4 of us to share (when we are all on the same page about what we want to eat!).


#5 - Set a Souvenir Budget

Another very important tip for doing Disney World on a budget is to set a souvenir budget and stick to it!  The kids always know that they only get so much to spend on souvenirs.  If they want something more, then it will have to come out of their own money. 

We have a tradition of each getting a pin each trip. We keep them on lanyards and it represents what that trip meant to us. 

For example, my youngest son got a Big Thunder Mountain Railroad pin on the trip that he was finally brave enough to ride roller coasters when he was 11.  He ended up liking it so much that we ended up riding that ride seven times for him that trip. 

On another occasion, I got a Food and Wine themed pin to represent the first time we attended Epcot’s Food and Wine festival. It’s a fun tradition we have and we budget $60 for the 4 pins each trip. 

In addition to that, we each get $50 each to spend on other souvenirs.  This ensures that we are careful about what we chose for our souvenirs and we don’t come home with a bunch of stuff we really don’t need.


#6 - Buy Park Tickets from Undercover Tourist

This is a tip that may not be common knowledge to a lot of people.  It is very hard to find deals on Disney Park tickets.  One place that always has Disney World park ticket deals though is the website, Undercover Tourist. 

This is where we always buy our park tickets.  On our most recent trip, we were able to save $90 for the 4 of us to get 5 day park tickets versus what it would have cost us if we had bought the tickets through Disney or other sellers. 

Undercover Tourist is a reputable and authorized seller of park tickets to Disney Parks as well as Universal Studios.  The only thing to be aware of when you buy tickets through Undercover Tourist is that they may not be refundable so be sure you are fully committed to your trip plans before making your purchase. 

We have used this site many times and have always been very happy with the service.

#7 - Drive, Don't Fly

Drive, don’t fly.  This may vary based on your own situation, but for us it is at least $1000 cheaper for us to drive than to fly to Florida.  We come from the metro Detroit area and there are four of us so airfare is usually $1300+ for four roundtrip tickets. 

If we drive, we spend about $300 in gas roundtrip.  The trip takes 18-19 hours so my husband and I alternate driving every four hours and we don’t even need a hotel room for the night. 

This also means that we have our own vehicle when we get there and don’t have to rent a car or rely on Disney World’s transportation system to get around.  It really saves us time and stress. 

I realize road tripping may not be for everyone but it really can save you a lot of money if you are willing to take the plunge and try it.  

We have been road tripping as a family since our kids were babies and we have so many fond memories of those trips together. After all, getting there is half the adventure!


#8 - Eat Dinner after You Leave the Park

We eat dinner after we return from the park.  Because we only eat one meal in the park, it is usually a late lunch, so sometimes we don’t even need dinner.  

When we do, we grab some inexpensive fast food or a deli meal from the local supermarket.  Sometimes we order a pizza.  All these options end up being cheaper than eating a second meal in the park that day.

 

More Disney World Planning Articles:

These are our favorite tips for doing Walt Disney World on a budget.  What do you like to do to cut costs when you visit the house of the mouse? 

More Blog Posts You Might Enjoy….

Aldi Recipes: Aldi Easy Meal Ideas:

8 Fun Ways to Spend More Family Time with Your Teens

Once your kids hit their tweens and teens, it can become harder to get them to want to spend quality time together as a family.  School, friends, and their hobbies can take up a lot of their time and they may become more reluctant to spend more time with the parental figures in their life. 

I get it!  I was a teen once and spending time with my parents didn’t rank high on my to do list back then! 

Here are some things my husband and I have found to be a good way to spend quality family time with our teens now that they find us a little less cool to hang out with than they once did 🙂

#1 - Family Movie Night at Home

Family Movie Night – We try to have family movie night at home at least once a month.  This has become even more of a bigger deal for us all with Covid still going on and us needing something to break up the monotony of the same old day to day routine we have fallen into. 

As a family we have enjoyed watching all the Marvel movies.  We also have gotten a lot of joy out of watching a lot of classic movies such as Disney ones.  That Darn Cat, Snowball Express, and The Ugly Dachshund are a few others that have been a hit at our house!

We have a movie theater type popcorn machine in our basement and we usually pair that with some soda and candy from the store for movie night!  

#2 - Family Game Night

Family Game Night – Even more popular than family movie night, is family game night at our house. 

This has evolved as the kids have grown.  We used to play games like Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, and Go Fish!   Now we have graduated to UNO, The Settlers of Catan, and Ticket to Ride, to name a few. 

Family Game Night is always accompanied with fun snacks.  Sometimes it’s as simple as some chips and dip, while other times we go all out and make some appetizers or a fun dessert.  

Need some family game night inspiration? 

Sign up to get this free Family Game Night with Teens guide complete with game recommendations and delicious game night recipes and snack ideas to make game nights more special in your house!

#3 - The Drive-In Movie Theater

Take a Trip to the Drive In Theater – This may not work for everyone, but if you are lucky enough to have a Drive In Theater near your home, this is a really great way to make good memories with your teens. 

We have been taking our kids to Drive-In movies since they were babies and it’s something they have continued to love doing no matter how old they get. 

Although many Drive In Theaters have been torn down over the years to make way for new developments (one I went to as a kid is now a Target!), there are still quite a few that have survived.  You can check this site here to see if there is one near you.  Many places are also now doing pop up Drive In movies for the summer months.  

Another option is to create your own “Drive In” theater in your backyard.  Technology has made it cheaper to project a movie onto a screen in your own yard.  You may not drive in to see it but you can still enjoy the experience of a movie in the great outdoors whenever you want!

#4 - Plan an Outing Based on Their Interests

Plan an outing doing something they love – Another wonderful way to get in quality time with your teens is to indulge their passions. 

With my oldest some that means attending car shows and visiting antique malls for some window shopping. 

With my youngest son, that means doing anything related to video games or dinosaurs.  

It can also mean visiting a pet store to look at the animals for sale there or going to the park to fly a kite or race some remote controlled cars.  

#5 - Visit a Local Attraction

Plan an outing attending local attractions –  Zoos, museums, indoor trampoline parks, science centers, historical and living history museums are just a few examples of local attractions that could make a super fun outing for you and your teens.  

Bonus tip: There are often ways to get into some of these attractions for free or at great discounts! 

 Our library offers passes for free or at a discount to attractions in the area.  This is the case both here in Michigan and also when we lived in Arizona so I think quite a few libraries might offer programs like this. 

Also, Bank of America has a Museums on Us program for their members that gives you free admission to 225 different attractions throughout the country on the first full weekend of each month. 

Groupon is another way to find great deals on local attractions.  We use this at least a few times a year to find discounted experiences to do with our boys. 

Finally, check the website of any attraction you are interested in to see if they offer any coupons, discount days, or free admission days.

#6 - Take a Hike

Go on a hike together – This is an activity that my boys and I have enjoyed since they were little and one that they have continued to enjoy throughout their childhood and into their teen years. 

No matter where we have lived in the country, we have always been able to find a lot of amazing hiking locales and trails within a one hour radius of our house. 

Getting out into nature to get some fresh air and exercise is an amazing way to recharge everyone’s batteries and also to reconnect with your teens.

#7 - Enjoy Seasonal Experiences

Enjoy the seasons together – Whether it is visiting an apple orchard or corn maze in the fall or sledding or ice skating in the winter, there are a lot of ways to create fun memories with your teens thoughout the seasons.

 Sledding, pumpkin patch, apple orchard, corn maze, farmer’s markets, ice skating, snowball fight, build a snowman, a game of soccer or tennis, visit a beach or lake, fly a kite….the possibilities are limitless!

#8 - Visit an Amusement Park, Waterpark, or Fair

Go to an amusement park, water park, or fair  – A trip to an amusement park or a water park is always hit with our kids. 

The great thing about this is that even if you live in a colder environment, you can still likely find indoor water and amusement park venues that you can visit year round.  We have several different indoor water parks that are attached to hotels within an hour or so drive from our home.  This is always a favorite family adventure. 

Indoor amusement establishments are always hits with our kids.  Our favorite one has rides, games, a bowling alley, miniature golf, and laser tag. 

We also try to attend a fair at least once a year with our kids.  When we lived in Arizona, we attended the state fair every year.  Here in Michigan, the state fair is a much smaller event so we attend one our our local county fairs. You can find a fair near you on this site!

What is your favorite way to spend time with your tweens and teens?