A Christmas Holiday Guide To Pre-preparing Christmas Food

by: CRAIG FORD

How to Pre-prepare Meals

Do what you can as soon as you can.  There are some things you can do ahead of time for certain meals that really make life easier.  Even if you cannot eek out a day to plan some cooking, just double 2-3 recipes a week and put it in the deep freeze.

If I’m making chicken spaghetti, it’s not THAT much more trouble to make a double recipe and then freeze half of it for a rainy day. That’s really my preferred way to do things these days. (I always make two cakes, for example, never just one. One to serve, one for the freezer.)

We love pizza and probably eat it once a week.  Pizza making is so much easier if you one afternoon precook your sausage, pre-cut your veggies, grate your cheese and pre-mix your pizza sauce for a month of pizzas.  You can measure things out and put in zip-lock bags and place in the freezer.  I find that the crust is better if you do it fresh but if you use your bread maker on the dough cycle and everything else is already done, it makes the meal so easy and quick.

When freezing meals, it works best if you take 3 days to do the work.

Day #1: Plan your menu.

Try to choose 5 to 6 meals that you know will freeze well and then triple the recipe.  This will give you 15 to 18 evenings of suppers.  Make your grocery list, multiplying everything by three.  Then make your purchases that day.

Day #2: Do all the prep work for the meals.

Work on things like chopping onions, green peppers, and grating cheese.  Take time to boil or bake, then debone chicken.  Brown your hamburger meat and make necessary sauces.

Day #3: Cooking day

'This is an assembly day where you put your recipes together and then place in freezer bags or containers.  It is invaluable to have a kitchen scale so you can fill your containers uniformly.

Tip: To make the job more fun, do your prep work and assembly work together with a friend.  If your schedules do not allow for you to work together, it’s still fun to share your meals.

Tip: Arrange with three friends to each make one recipe three times.  Exchange the meals so that you each get one of the three dishes.  This way you each have more variety.   As a bonus, you can type out instructions and also add ideas for side dishes.  Post the meals on the fridge door and it almost feels like you’re in a restaurant – just choose the meal and heat it up.

I try to cook some things for the three days of Christmas (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day) a few weeks before Christmas, and do all my baking for others then too.

Remember: It takes some serious planning because you need to know how much for everything, and need to know how many pans you’ve got going at once and how much you have in the oven at the same time, etc. But it is great once it’s done. A food processor helps.

Great Foods to Freeze

Pie crust – the pie crust that freezes best is the one with eggs.  Later, all you have to do is roll it out and put the pie stuff in.

Mashed potatoes freeze well, mashed sweet potatoes too.

Christmas rolls and cinnamon rolls.

Perogies – a perogie maker allows you to make two dozen progies at one time so get these ready beforehand and put them in the freezer.

Mexican food is another favorite, but remember, tortillas do not freeze well.  However, if you make them into chimichangas and then freeze, they do amazingly well.

Denton County and Dallas-Fortworth Real Estate Agent Patricia Young

 and the Integrity Team

Looking to buy or sell a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth areas?  Professional real estate agent Patricia Young specializes in helping buyers and sellers invest  in real estate in Denton County and in surrounding neighborhood."This "client first" philosophy has always been our approach and it requires us to continually improve our skills and ways of doing business.So when you decide that you'd like to buy or sell a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth areas, please contact us.

Mortgage Loan Options: Finding the One that Suits Your Needs

Once you find the right home, or even before, you’ll want to have a lender ready to let you borrow the money you need to get the house.  There are many different options for a mortgage loan. 

All lenders will be different with their opportunities, but the most common options most offer are the fixed rate, adjustable rate or affordable housing programs.  Determining which mortgage loan best suits your needs will depend on what you’re looking for and what you have to give. 

Here are the different options and what they will entail for buyers looking for a home loan:

A fixed rate loan is one that will keep the same rate from the time the loan is closed to the time the loan is paid off, never changing so that the homebuyer doesn’t get an unexpected bill one month. 

A borrower can achieve peace of mind by locking in the current rate if it’s low.  They have no worries that the loan will increase in a few years if the rate goes up.  Whether the loan is for 20 or 30 years, the rate and payment will always remain the same until the very end. 

The downside to a fixed rate loan is that they usually come with higher rates than the adjustable rate loans – at least initially.Financial institutions also tend to want to protect their investment by requiring mortgage insurance if you have less than perfect credit, which then costs a borrower more in monthly costs. 

An adjustable rate mortgage loan is when the interest rate is set to be adjustable throughout the life of the loan.  So for the first five years, you might get an attractive interest rate.  

But once the five years is up, the lender has the right to raise the rate which can cripple your payment ability if you have bad credit and can’t afford the new monthly installment.  You may have the option to refinance once the rate adjusts, but if your credit is bad, you could wind up in foreclosure instead.

You might benefit from this type of loan because if the interest rates go down, the mortgage rate can go down on the loan, too. The disadvantage to this type of loan is that if the interest rate goes higher, so does the loan. 

A borrower will ultimately go through several gambles throughout the life the loan. Those who qualify for this type of mortgage loan are generally those who have less money to use as a downpayment. 

Another option is the affordable housing programs that are available to buyers. These include the first time buyer loans. This allows those who have little to no down payment to gain access to the home they want to buy.

If you’re unable to qualify for any other type of mortgage loan, you could probably get one of these loans. You’re still expected to meet some requirements, though, such as a certain percentage of the loan for a down payment.  The other loans available usually require a much higher percentage of the total loan to put down.  

When applying for any type of mortgage loans, you’ll need to make sure you’re credit worthy because this can hurt your chances for the best rates and payments.  Make sure you check your credit reports and fix anything that could hurt your chances of qualifying for the loan you need. 

Get the best deals you can now.  If situations come up in the future and you’re unable to make the payments as needed, a refinance option could be available to you, so you can make those payments easier. 

Plus, if your credit is poor right now, and the only loan you can qualify for has a high interest rate, you can refinance one or two years down the road when you’ve had time to clean up your credit and polish it so that you qualify for a better rate and lower payment. 

If you’re planning to sell your home soon, make sure you’re predicting how well you’ll fare in the buyer’s market, too, since that’s what hat you’ll be wearing when you close on the sale of your existing home.

I hope you have enjoyed these lessons over the past few days. And, I hope you will not hesitate to contact me with any questions youmight have about real estate.

Warm regards,

Denton County and Dallas-Fortworth Real Estate Agent Patricia Young

 and the Integrity Team

Looking to buy or sell a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth areas?  Professional real estate agent Patricia Young specializes in helping buyers and sellers invest  in real estate in Denton County and in surrounding neighborhood."This "client first" philosophy has always been our approach and it requires us to continually improve our skills and ways of doing business.So when you decide that you'd like to buy or sell a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth areas, please contact us.

You’ve Found a Buyer!

You may get more than one interested party wanting to buy your house. This is an ideal situation because it gives you negotiating power. But even if there’s only one prospective buyer, you still want to negotiate the deal in your favor.

If you’re a do it yourself seller, don’t get intimidated by the buyer’s agent who appears to know more than you do. Take your time and don’t get flustered if you don’t know the answer to something or can’t make a decision right away.

The closing process takes some time and you have time to make sure you don’t give up money that’s rightfully yours in the selling process. You want to make sure the offer is in line with your appraisal and CMA that you’ve had prepared.

Your buyer should come prepared with a pre-approved loan in the best-case scenario. If you allow them to wait to get financed, and they’re only pre-qualified, you might be waiting a long time for them to find the financing they need to cover the cost of your home.

If you haven’t hired an agent to represent you, it may be good to use the a la carte option with a law firm and have someone help you with the legal paperwork surrounding the sale of your home. There are also many sites on the Internet that have papersyou can use as your guideline during the closing.

During the negotiations, you’ll discover when you’re expected to move out of the property and allow the new owners to move in. You should have been preparing to buy your new home during this process, so hopefully you’ll be on your way.

But if you’re just now entering the buyer’s market, you have to flip to the other side and try to make the most with the investment you make with the money you gained on the sale of your old home!

Denton County and Dallas-Fortworth Real Estate Agent Patricia Young

 and the Integrity Team

Looking to buy or sell a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth areas?  Professional real estate agent Patricia Young specializes in helping buyers and sellers invest in real estate in Denton County and in surrounding neighborhood."This "client first" philosophy has always been her approach and it requires them to continually improve their skills and ways of doing business.So when you decide that you'd like to buy or sell a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth areas, please contact us.

Tip No. 7 When Buyers Start Answering Your Ads

If you have an agent to help you, then you’ll be periodically called to exit the home while he or she gives a tour of your house to an interested party.  You’ll need to get the pets out of the house, or lock them up, and keep everything in tip top shape for unexpected calls that give you mere minutes to vacate the property.

If you are following the For Sale By Owner method, then you’ll need to schedule Open Houses on the weekends or evenings so that you can usher in a flurry of interested buyers without having to constantly be giving tours of your home on a daily basis.

If you have a FSBO sign in your yard, expect some people who aren’t familiar with the etiquette of buying a house to just walk up to your door and ask for a tour out of the blue. You can either give them a notice of an upcoming open house, or cave in and show them around – but make sure the house is ready for a showing!

During your open house, you may have more buyers than you can give a tour to all showing up at once.  Make sure you remove anything valuable so that it doesn’t go missing while one buyer is in your bedroom and you’re busy showing other buyers the garage.

Make sure you know the answers to questions people may have, but if you get hit with one you don’t know, don’t lie. Tell them you’ll take their number and get back to them with the answer.  They’ll appreciate your honesty.

See you tomorrow.

Denton County and Dallas-Fortworth Real Estate Agent Patricia Young

 and the Integrity Team

Looking to buy or sell a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth areas?  Professional real estate agent Patricia Young specializes in helping buyers and sellers invest in real estate in Denton County and in surrounding neighborhood."This "client first" philosophy has always been her approach and it requires them to continually improve their skills and ways of doing business.So when you decide that you'd like to buy or sell a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth areas, please contact us.