Alrighty, I'm back for another frugal post. Hopefully everything will stay uneventful so that we can catch up and maybe, just maybe get ahead!
The other day I got a call from my friend, Melody. She said that there was an opening in the produce co-op she belongs to. I told her a little while ago that I was interested in it, but there was a waiting list. So I pounced on the opportunity to try it out. Every Wednesday a lady goes down to the farmers' market and purchases a bunch of food in bulk. She then divides it up between the number of co-op members. We get what ever is in the box for $20.
This is what we got in our box this week:
1 package of strawberries
1 package of purple grapes
4 oranges
3 large tomatoes
4 cucumbers
about 1.5 to 2 pounds of green beans
7 potatoes
2 heads of ice burg lettuce
3 heads of broccoli
Not bad, not bad. Seeing as how I had bought two bags of grapes for a snack at the store the other day and it cost me $10!! I would say we got a great deal on the box of food. There is no way this will last us a whole week, so I am hoping that at some point we may be able to buy another share. Not sure if we are able to do so, but I will look into it.
There are other ways that you can get great produce at reasonable prices. One of the most common is to join a CSA (consumer sponsored agriculture). It will be most helpful to our future food production to sponsor local farmers. Preferable sustainable farming. Our local farmers market is very expensive. It is mostly organic, but very expensive. I have heard of people who get together (a co-op) and purchase large quantities at the warehouse that distributes to grocery stores. Of course there are also places like Costco, that I heard has a lot of organic produce. That requires a membership, so you would need to see if will come out ahead with the amount of food you purchase. We personally belong to BJ's. I buy large quantities of bananas, apples, grapes and lettuce on a regular basis. I also purchase large bags of frozen blueberries and strawberries. We found out, not too long ago, that there is a Trader Joes in the city, right near where Jeremiah works. I was reading about someone's purchases and was surprised at the wonderful prices the store had for their produce. We will have to take a look see!
What are some of the ways that you are trying to save? I also think that there are savings to be had even if one purchases all organic food. In the immediate sense it is more expensive, but most certainly cheaper in the long term as far as health costs go.
Showing posts with label Frugality Challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frugality Challenge. Show all posts
Friday, April 29, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
Frugal Friday
This week I didn't have time to prepare my own post about being frugal. So I will link you to someone else's. She links to a few other people's as well. Their topic is on frugal and nutritious food. I have enjoyed reading some of the recipes. Please check out Kitchen Stewardship for some inspiration.
I will say this: There is nothing frugal about having your child in the hospital! I suppose it would have been much better to have had some freezer meals put aside each month that would have seen us through some of these past dinners. I will have to make sure to do that next month. It would have been a lot cheaper to pull out a homemade freezer meal than to have made runs to the store to grab 'just something' to eat. We live and learn.
I will say this: There is nothing frugal about having your child in the hospital! I suppose it would have been much better to have had some freezer meals put aside each month that would have seen us through some of these past dinners. I will have to make sure to do that next month. It would have been a lot cheaper to pull out a homemade freezer meal than to have made runs to the store to grab 'just something' to eat. We live and learn.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Frugal Friday
Let me start by adding a few more websites that are dedicated to helping you match store deals with coupons. I acquired these from another frugal mommy at Jed's speech. She finds some amazing deals!
The Krazy Coupon Lady
Stretching a Buck
Totally Target
The other resource is for those who have Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance. There is a program called Blue Points where you can earn points from wellness programs or exercise and use those points to obtain gift cards to various stores (Amazon, Lowes, etc.). I don't know the ins and outs of it yet, as I just found out about it, but it looks neat.
For some reporting in, I was able to make both boys their tool belts. Next I will make Saoirse's apron and work on copying the pattern for the rest of us on some cheap white fabric. Since it will be used multiple time, I thought this would make the pattern last much longer. You can see pictures of the tool belts below.
Now for the meat of this post....
Bartering
I think we need to bring back bartering on a larger scale. I have no problem with people wanting to make money for the things they do or make. But for some of us, it just gets too expensive to buy said things. And not only expensive for 'things' but for learning. There don't seem to be enough grandmas around to show us how to sew, knit, can, spin, crochet, organize, clean, etc, etc... The great thing about grandmas was that they didn't charge you for teaching you the basics. But now, unless you have such a grandma, or a skilled friend, you would be hard pressed to learn such skills for free. A knitting class will cost $30. A sewing class, $100. A cheaper way may be to buy a book, but you still have the book cost and then if you are like me, it may take you forever and a day to figure it out through the printed word. I do sooooo much better if someone shows me how to do something as opposed to reading how to do it.
I would love to see small communities come together to pull their resources. For example we can't have bee hives where we live. Well, we could, but our neighbor asked us not to as he has a lethal allergy to bee stings. I don't think it would come across as 'loving your neighboor' if we went out and bought a bee hive and a box of bees! But maybe someone in the community wouldn't mind getting into bee keeping. And maybe that person would really love fresh eggs, but doesn't want or can't raise the chickens themselves. So you make an exchange, honey for fresh eggs. I would also love to see more people in the surrounding community gardening and sharing their produce. Or have various people with various skills pick a night at the library, where we can meet for free, to teach us their skills.
I've used bartering with a good friend of mine. We would exchange goat milk for homemade bread. Also, sort of on the same idea was the Trade Day we attended a couple of times. Everyone made or brought something they had that was gently used. At the door you would get tickets that added up to the value of the items you brought with you. Then, when it was your turn, you went inside and 'purchased' items you wanted with your tickets. This would work great on a small scale within a church or neighborhood. Everyone set up tables with their goods and then with your tickets you would go around purchasing goods, or even services (oil changes, cleaning, classes, etc.).
I think our society, even though we are so caught up on the idea of socialization, we really don't pull together to work together. It's an every man for himself world out there. I certainly do not subscribe to the notion that it "takes a village to raise a child", but standing alone isn't where it's at either. There is a balance.
I'm not sure what it would take to set something like this up. Fliers, word of mouth....? Maybe have a website where everyone would post what they had to offer. Maybe have a points system as well. I mean, maybe I need honey, but the bee guy doesn't need fresh eggs or goat milk (of which we have). So maybe he gets 10 points for a pint of honey he has to offer. Maybe I get 10 points for every half gallon of milk I have to offer. That way I can go to the bee guy and spend my 10 points, he then gains 10 points for selling his honey and he can then use the 10 points on getting his oil changed with the guy down the road.
This would be a wonderful way to be frugal as no cash money would be going out of pocket. That could be used to put towards bills and larger projects. What do you all think of such a system? It sounds neat, even possibly doable.
Here are the boys tool belts:
The Krazy Coupon Lady
Stretching a Buck
Totally Target
The other resource is for those who have Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance. There is a program called Blue Points where you can earn points from wellness programs or exercise and use those points to obtain gift cards to various stores (Amazon, Lowes, etc.). I don't know the ins and outs of it yet, as I just found out about it, but it looks neat.
For some reporting in, I was able to make both boys their tool belts. Next I will make Saoirse's apron and work on copying the pattern for the rest of us on some cheap white fabric. Since it will be used multiple time, I thought this would make the pattern last much longer. You can see pictures of the tool belts below.
Now for the meat of this post....
Bartering
I think we need to bring back bartering on a larger scale. I have no problem with people wanting to make money for the things they do or make. But for some of us, it just gets too expensive to buy said things. And not only expensive for 'things' but for learning. There don't seem to be enough grandmas around to show us how to sew, knit, can, spin, crochet, organize, clean, etc, etc... The great thing about grandmas was that they didn't charge you for teaching you the basics. But now, unless you have such a grandma, or a skilled friend, you would be hard pressed to learn such skills for free. A knitting class will cost $30. A sewing class, $100. A cheaper way may be to buy a book, but you still have the book cost and then if you are like me, it may take you forever and a day to figure it out through the printed word. I do sooooo much better if someone shows me how to do something as opposed to reading how to do it.
I would love to see small communities come together to pull their resources. For example we can't have bee hives where we live. Well, we could, but our neighbor asked us not to as he has a lethal allergy to bee stings. I don't think it would come across as 'loving your neighboor' if we went out and bought a bee hive and a box of bees! But maybe someone in the community wouldn't mind getting into bee keeping. And maybe that person would really love fresh eggs, but doesn't want or can't raise the chickens themselves. So you make an exchange, honey for fresh eggs. I would also love to see more people in the surrounding community gardening and sharing their produce. Or have various people with various skills pick a night at the library, where we can meet for free, to teach us their skills.
I've used bartering with a good friend of mine. We would exchange goat milk for homemade bread. Also, sort of on the same idea was the Trade Day we attended a couple of times. Everyone made or brought something they had that was gently used. At the door you would get tickets that added up to the value of the items you brought with you. Then, when it was your turn, you went inside and 'purchased' items you wanted with your tickets. This would work great on a small scale within a church or neighborhood. Everyone set up tables with their goods and then with your tickets you would go around purchasing goods, or even services (oil changes, cleaning, classes, etc.).
I think our society, even though we are so caught up on the idea of socialization, we really don't pull together to work together. It's an every man for himself world out there. I certainly do not subscribe to the notion that it "takes a village to raise a child", but standing alone isn't where it's at either. There is a balance.
I'm not sure what it would take to set something like this up. Fliers, word of mouth....? Maybe have a website where everyone would post what they had to offer. Maybe have a points system as well. I mean, maybe I need honey, but the bee guy doesn't need fresh eggs or goat milk (of which we have). So maybe he gets 10 points for a pint of honey he has to offer. Maybe I get 10 points for every half gallon of milk I have to offer. That way I can go to the bee guy and spend my 10 points, he then gains 10 points for selling his honey and he can then use the 10 points on getting his oil changed with the guy down the road.
This would be a wonderful way to be frugal as no cash money would be going out of pocket. That could be used to put towards bills and larger projects. What do you all think of such a system? It sounds neat, even possibly doable.
Here are the boys tool belts:
Jedidiah's tool belt. Not that he will wear it! He wanted one, but is a bit freaked out about tying it around his waist. Oh well, maybe in time.
Jonah's tool belt.
Jonah, outside today, wearing his. He really loves his tool belt. I found the pattern HERE.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Frugal Friday
So can anyone guess what the first picture below is?
No peeking! You have to guess first. This is a way that we are trying to be frugal. I'll give you a hint: It's a food source. A very, very cute food source :-)
Did you guess correctly? Aren't they adorable? Little peeps. Day old peeps. I knew they were to be shipped out sometime on the 30th or 31st. So yesterday after the girls' art class we headed to Walmart. I was there to get a few things for Moira. While there I remembered that we needed a box for our soon arriving chicks. The one we had for our last batch has spent two years outdoors....in the goat area...where the goats and our children frolic in the afternoons. Let's just say it wasn't suitable for this new batch of chicks. So we purchased a new box. Normally you will get a phone call from the post office to say your chicks have arrived. Usually that phone call comes at 5:30 in the morning. So, since I did not receive such a call yesterday morning I assumed that the chicks would be coming the next day. Imagine my surprise when I got out of the van to hear little peeping. What? Where? There sitting on our porch steps (in the cold mind you) was *the* box. The box that held "live baby chicks", that's what the label on the box said. Not that you could mistake it for anything else. With little feet, beaks and fuzz poking through the air holes. And of course the peeping, lots of peeping. That meant that I needed to grab shavings, a waterer and chick feed during Jed's speech therapy.
I am sure you can bet who was in total love with them. Jonah is pretty obsessed with the little girls.
As long as we hand him a chick he is very gentle with it. The trick is keeping his hands out of the box while we are trying to get him a chick to hold. He most certainly does not know how to pick up a chick!! Oy!!
This is Miracle. Named for the fact that she survived the tumultuous trip. Her little foot was sticking out of the box and wasn't moving. I poked it, still no movement. We ordered 15 chicks and they sent us 18. They send more than you ordered due to the fact that there is a high likelihood that a few might not make the trip. Little Miracle was being squashed by her sisters. When we pulled her out of the pile she was still breathing, but looked on the verge of death. Isabella held her close for heat, and gave her some sugar water and lo and behold she is a new chick!
Some snuggle time.
Even Jed wanted in on the chick holding. He didn't want to hold it close (to prevent them from falling). He still has some sensory issues. (Granted Jeremiah saw that the wireless was on. We had it on for Moira's sake.)
We purchased 10 White Leghorns and 5 Americanas. They sent us 13 White Leghorns and the 5 Americanas.
This is what that brown little fuzz ball will grow up to look like. The Americanas lay blue/green eggs. Very cool.
This is what the light yellow fuzz balls will look like when they grow up. All white. They are very proficient egg layers, and lay white eggs.
This picture is of another way to try to save money. Aprons. Well, eventually all this fabric will be aprons. Now, I have to say I was most certainly not as frugal as I could have been in the fabric department. I'll explain in a bit. The fabric on the right is for Saoirse. I'll be making her a bib style apron. The solid colors will be for the trim and pockets. The dots will be for the body. On the left is material for Flannery's apron. The horses for the body and the black for the trim. I'll be making THIS style apron for all the older three girls and my self. I have one already, and have made two others for others.
Isabella chose a dog pattern. Again, the larger piece is for the body, the smaller for the trim.
The two fabrics with the tractors (the red and blue, and the blue and white) are for the boys. These are for fun. I plan on making them some tool belts. Jonah loves to stick toy tools in his pockets and pretend to be Bob the Builder.
All the fabric on the line. Mine is at the end. The photos loaded incorrectly. You can get a better look below.
There we go. My fabric to my apron.
Now for some explanation on the need for aprons. House work, gardening and tending animals all tends to be a bit on the messy side. After years of doing such work in my normal clothing I have seen that it would be beneficial to cover my decent clothing up so that it lasts longer. And as far as the frugality of the fabric goes. Well my last apron I had bought the $2.33 fabric at Walmart. It's held up just fine. But I bought it for the cheapness, not for it's looks. But lately it has become ever so apparent that my wardrobe is severely lacking in decent clothing. The situation is this....I get 99% of my clothing either as gifts, hand me downs, or from Jeremiah, who snags something he sees on sale at Walmart. There is nothing at all wrong with either of those methods of obtaining clothing. However, that leaves me with a wardrobe that does not actually go together. The last time I bought an outfit, for myself, that I was able to piece together to go together was 12 years ago. I only have a couple of things that go together. If both of my neutral shirts are in the wash, well I'm in trouble :-) Not to mention that some of my shirts are from college. That makes them about 18 years old. Yeah, my wardrobe has issues. So I splurged on the more expensive fabric. I went for the $4.45 fabric! That does add up when you need 4 yards of it. But I thought this way, while I was working during the day I could at least look nice :-) No matter what I'm wearing underneath I'll look presentable.
I also felt the girls needed aprons as milking season will be upon us soon. One of our goats is due today! These aprons are long and will give them great coverage as they sit at the milking stand. This way they can look decent when we go out as well. They are not inclined to change clothing multiple times a day. This way they can get dressed once and thow their apron on when they need to do chores outside. A win-win situation. This year I will be teaching Flannery how to milk the goats. She is very excited to be learning. So can anyone guess what I'll be up to in the next few weeks? Sewing, lots of sewing!
HSV Garden Challenge
I saw this challenge on a blog I frequent. I thought it fit into my frugal challenge. Goodness knows that I need help with getting started! I went out this morning to take pictures of the garden. This is the state it is in at the present moment:
The lighter colored wood are the new frames for the two new beds we are putting in. One of which is resting on top of an older bed. The grass you see growing is wheat grass. I'm thinking we need to grow wheat grass for our lawn up front!
Each bed is 4' by 8'. With the amount of produce we consume I don't think these are going to get us too far. But at this point any help in the food budget will be welcomed. I am praying we have much more success than we did last year. My desire to make gardening a priority is only going so-so. With a newborn and a child still recovering from appendicitis, my efforts have only gone so far as doing some reading. Which will eventually pay off, but it isn't getting us anywhere in the present.
The long brown grass/weeds you see behind the electrical box is where I hope to put a herb garden. We really need to get to it in the next couple of weeks or we will have to wait till next year. Those are some very hardy weeds. We need to rip them up, move or remove rocks and then cover the area with newspaper.
Plans for the Garden:
So far we have seeds for the following:
tomatoes
cucumbers
carrots
lettuces
green beans
watermelon
zucchini
I would like to get try our hand at all of them. My hope is that we will be able to have enough for our present needs and then be able to preserve some for the winter months. I would also love to be able to use some garden season extension ideas. With the mild weather in the spring and fall we should be able to grow things for about 8 or 9 months out of the year.
Resources:
I basically check out any gardening book I can get my hands on at my local library. I frequent a few blogs that are garden themed heavy. The blogs are mostly for inspiration. The ones I read are:
The library books that I have out currently:
You Grow Girl
What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?)
Your Backyard Herb Garden
Secrets to Great Soil
Some ideas I have looked up on line for our garden are:
No till method
Lasagna gardening
One book that I own that I really enjoy is, "The Backyard Homestead". This book has a little bit of everything and as such doesn't go into great detail about any one thing. It is definitely more for inspiration, to open your eyes to possibilities.
Involvement:
The girls are all very excited about starting a garden. Moira (11) in particular has been very eager to start. I am going to incorporate gardening in with our homeschooling by having them learn about how plants grow. They can do nature study right there in the garden. We took the Charlotte Mason approach to schooling and nature study is a part of that. I think having them sketch the various stages of the plants would be very beneficial. One of the main skills that nature study creates is the eye for detail. I bought the kids small trowels and forks so that they could be more involved.
For some reason I can't get the button to appear on my page. Please visit the Homeschool Village Garden Challenge here.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Frugal Friday
Saving money. One area that I couldn't bring myself to pay out was in haircuts. I think I've had my hair cut twice in the past 5 years. Isabella had her hair cut all of 3 times in her life (one was to fix her attempt to cut it herself at age 4). I think the other girls had their hair cut once at a shop. Besides those, all other hair cuts over the past 13 years have been given by me.
This means that we don't sport the latest trend. But I figured with 6 kids, and $10 a haircut (sometimes more), we are saving a lot of money! This weekend was a hair cutting fest. I cut all the kids hair. I had one mishap, leaving Moira with much shorter hair than I attended to! Oops! The boys got buzz cuts. and I've been mourning that decision ever since. Ha! I really prefer the boys to have some hair on top of their heads :-) Thankfully it will grow pretty quickly.
Now to get you all started with some money saving sites. I think I've linked to them in the past. It's great that someone is willing to share the results of their work on all the great deals out there. It will make things so much easier for the rest of us. I mean, check out the deal that Walgreens had with their generic diapers. Pretty nifty and thrifty at $2.50 per package!
Money Saving Mom
This will be the only site I post today as the other ones are saved on the other computer.
Here is a peek at the new haircuts:
Took a few of the girls on the porch to take these to put up for this post. Isabella had asked a year or so ago to get her hair cut short. She got it cut to just above her shoulders and then proceeded to wear her hair in a pony tail every day since. I am not kidding. I think there was only one day in the past *year* that she wore her hair down!! So this time around she asked for it to be cut short again and I said, "No way Jose!!". What's the point of me spending the time to cut it short and then you wear it up. Every. Single. Day. ?? I bought some scissors designed to thin the hair. It helped a lot with managing her very, very thick hair. She was happy and that makes me happy :-)
This means that we don't sport the latest trend. But I figured with 6 kids, and $10 a haircut (sometimes more), we are saving a lot of money! This weekend was a hair cutting fest. I cut all the kids hair. I had one mishap, leaving Moira with much shorter hair than I attended to! Oops! The boys got buzz cuts. and I've been mourning that decision ever since. Ha! I really prefer the boys to have some hair on top of their heads :-) Thankfully it will grow pretty quickly.
Now to get you all started with some money saving sites. I think I've linked to them in the past. It's great that someone is willing to share the results of their work on all the great deals out there. It will make things so much easier for the rest of us. I mean, check out the deal that Walgreens had with their generic diapers. Pretty nifty and thrifty at $2.50 per package!
Money Saving Mom
This will be the only site I post today as the other ones are saved on the other computer.
Here is a peek at the new haircuts:
I think Moira looks great! I just didn't intend to cut it so short! I always, always end up with one side longer (the left side) than the other. I was careful to cut it to match and I ended up cutting the left side shorter....oy! So she doesn't have an even bob, but I don't think it's too noticeable.
I was really enjoying Flannery's long hair. Flannery has matured a lot this past year and I think her long hair added to the look of maturity (NOT that I am trying to hurry things up, not in the least!). Flannery is blessed with not too thick or thin hair, with a bit of a wave. It would be easy for her to make it straight and easy for her to give it some curl. Lucky her ;-)
I really think Saoirse is cute with shorter hair. This isn't the best picture as she is kind of scrunching up her shoulders. For Saoirse it is much easier to manage her hair with it shorter. Her hair turns into a rat's nest incredibly quickly.
Jed and his buzz. Of course the boy's are still cute as ever, but I think for Jed he needs the longer hair to help with the shape of his head. Just my opinion.
Now Jonah, I was really bumming about. I *much* prefer him with longer hair on top. I just keep looking at him and it's just not clicking with me :-)
I forgot to get one of the baby. Not that he has any hair to speak of, but just because he's so cute!
If anyone knows of any online tutorials for cutting hair please pass them along. I've looked and not come up with any good ones, or ones that I can use.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Frugal Friday
Simple title. I thought of: Frugality with Full Hands Friday. But it seemed a bit long. I'll stick to keeping it simple, since everything else about this won't be :-)
I sat down with the girls last night and got them on the frugal bandwagon. That wasn't too hard since I told them they would get a percentage of the money saved to split among themselves. Not sure what that percentage will be. Although I need to talk to them about the expectations I have for them in using that money. Like NO candy buying! Ha, ha! We sat and thought of areas where we could cut back on. I encourage you all to make a plan suitable for your family. Then link to it in the comments for all of us to encourage one another and share ideas. I know there are ways to link up (like with Mr. Linky) in each post, but I don't know how to do that yet. Maybe in time. We can try to post on Friday's with our progress. Not necessary to do that every Friday, but it will give us a day when we know we can check up on each other to see how we are doing.
Here is our very skeleton of a plan.
Grocery budget
On the site I linked to yesterday she gave a $90 dollar limit per person for each month. She said it was based on how many were in your household. I know Aubrey isn't eating table food, nor will he for a while to come, but I figured I would count him in. That gives us $810 for the month for groceries. Now here is the hard part. In our family grocery budget, things like toiletries, paper, small kitchen items, etc are counted in that. Sometimes even clothing. I think her numbers are for food only. So lets keep our numbers to food only. I will have to set some sort of number for those other things, which I haven't had time to figure out yet. This will be very hard for us to do, but I want to make an attempt. At least if I keep diligent track of the numbers I can see how much we are really spending and where we can do better. It will be a learning experience. We already talked about having set times to eat. And that we all eat together. One of the problems we have is no one is on the same schedule and I can't keep track of how much food is being eaten. My kids eat a LOT of food. I know we were feeling more hungry at the start of this diet, but that is starting to get a bit better. I was able to make a HUGE pot of beef stew, that will last us for four meals. However, I made a pot roast, a large one at that, and it was eaten all up in one meal. Way too expensive to be doing that!! So lots of little changes need to be made in the menu planning department.
Energy budget
I think last year or the year before last we tried for a couple of months to cut back on our energy usage. Jeremiah was skeptical that we could make a difference, but we did! So the girls and I thought of ways we could but back on our energy use. Things like cutting back on our heat and AC (when appropriate), using our laundry line to dry our clothing, shutting of lights, fans, and maybe the computers,and not leaving the fridge open just to look around. These are definitely the areas where the girls can help. We also have a heat lamp in the barn going 24/7 which is not needed except for night time. If that.
I averaged out the last few years for March and it came to $249. So we will be trying to beat that number.
Clothing and other areas
We try to buy cheap. We have gone to the Good Will a few times to get clothing as well. But I think we could definitely improve in this area. Our biggest pit fall is not buying ahead of the need. We have growing children and clothing will be needed. We need to buy six months ahead with sales, used, or homemade so that we are not forced to buy full price because we need something *now*. I would really like to get into making or repurposing clothing. One area that we can really save is in diapers. We spend probably about $70 a month on diapers and wipes for all three boys. We are pretty motivated to get the older two boys potty trained. And I have a whole stash of cloth diapers for Aubrey that we could be utilizing. Seems silly to be throwing money away with each diaper change, when we don't have to!! Yes, cloth means more work. But "work" we could be getting "payed" for!
Gardening can, if we are diligent to do the work this spring and summer, save us a lot of money. We eat a LOT of salad. Lots of tomatoes, and cucumbers. Plus other things like green beans, and fruit. We have four blueberry bushes to plant. However it will probably be 3 to 5 years before they are producing of us. That's the problem with some of this. We have to spend the money not only on the blueberry bushes now, but on the blueberries we need to be eating today. So more cost now so that we can save money in a few years. Actually four blueberry bushes will hardly get us a few weeks worth of berries. We will need a lot more bushes. I was just reading someones blog for the first time, so I can't remember who they are, but they were growing some 22 fruit and nut trees, had chickens, had a swing set for the kids and a veggie garden on 1/5 of an acre! Whoa!! We really need to look at the use of our space differently. I would love to plant apple, peach, and cherry trees. Also plant some blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. I'm sure there is much more, but those would be what I would start with. So the money we will be saving in those other areas will be put towards these money saving projects (the fruit trees, and such).
Coupons
The type of foods we buy are the foods that do not have coupons for them. However that being said, there are ways you can work the couponing system with stores like Walgreens and CVS where you can actually make money on items. My goal will be to start that and use that money for our paper products and toiletries. The girls are really excited about clipping coupons. Not sure how long that will last :-) But I let them have that job. I will make sure to link to some of the sites that tell you what deals are out there that you can combine coupons to make money.
Well that is a start for our frugal outline. As the plan becomes more concrete, or changes need to be made, I will update in the following weeks.
I found that blog I was talking about with the 22 fruit/nut trees. I am most certainly putting it in my favorites! Here was a great article on "How Sustainable is Your Kitchen". This reminds me of another way to save, bartering. Yup, bartering. I was at our local in-home grain shop to buy some coconut oil. The owners go to our church. I asked her if they took 'cards' (our visa bank card) and she said they took card, cash, checks and barter. And she was *serious* about the bartering! She and her husband are really trying to get people to see the importance of making your local communities more reliant on you and your neighbors than the government, or businesses over seas. You should check them out some time. This *link* is for their store, and this one is for their *food prep site*. My friend that I got the goat milk from barters as well. I needed milk, and had some freezer meals that we didn't get to before our diet change. So we made the exchange. Dave, from church (you'll see him on the food prep site), advises that you learn a skill that will be valuable for bartering purposes. Another good use for homeopathy! See, I could barter my services. Who doesn't get sick? Ha, ha!
We ran some errands, now time to eat lunch. Moira has asked me no less than 5 times if she can start on the garden. I need to put that child to work :-)
I sat down with the girls last night and got them on the frugal bandwagon. That wasn't too hard since I told them they would get a percentage of the money saved to split among themselves. Not sure what that percentage will be. Although I need to talk to them about the expectations I have for them in using that money. Like NO candy buying! Ha, ha! We sat and thought of areas where we could cut back on. I encourage you all to make a plan suitable for your family. Then link to it in the comments for all of us to encourage one another and share ideas. I know there are ways to link up (like with Mr. Linky) in each post, but I don't know how to do that yet. Maybe in time. We can try to post on Friday's with our progress. Not necessary to do that every Friday, but it will give us a day when we know we can check up on each other to see how we are doing.
Here is our very skeleton of a plan.
Grocery budget
On the site I linked to yesterday she gave a $90 dollar limit per person for each month. She said it was based on how many were in your household. I know Aubrey isn't eating table food, nor will he for a while to come, but I figured I would count him in. That gives us $810 for the month for groceries. Now here is the hard part. In our family grocery budget, things like toiletries, paper, small kitchen items, etc are counted in that. Sometimes even clothing. I think her numbers are for food only. So lets keep our numbers to food only. I will have to set some sort of number for those other things, which I haven't had time to figure out yet. This will be very hard for us to do, but I want to make an attempt. At least if I keep diligent track of the numbers I can see how much we are really spending and where we can do better. It will be a learning experience. We already talked about having set times to eat. And that we all eat together. One of the problems we have is no one is on the same schedule and I can't keep track of how much food is being eaten. My kids eat a LOT of food. I know we were feeling more hungry at the start of this diet, but that is starting to get a bit better. I was able to make a HUGE pot of beef stew, that will last us for four meals. However, I made a pot roast, a large one at that, and it was eaten all up in one meal. Way too expensive to be doing that!! So lots of little changes need to be made in the menu planning department.
Energy budget
I think last year or the year before last we tried for a couple of months to cut back on our energy usage. Jeremiah was skeptical that we could make a difference, but we did! So the girls and I thought of ways we could but back on our energy use. Things like cutting back on our heat and AC (when appropriate), using our laundry line to dry our clothing, shutting of lights, fans, and maybe the computers,and not leaving the fridge open just to look around. These are definitely the areas where the girls can help. We also have a heat lamp in the barn going 24/7 which is not needed except for night time. If that.
I averaged out the last few years for March and it came to $249. So we will be trying to beat that number.
Clothing and other areas
We try to buy cheap. We have gone to the Good Will a few times to get clothing as well. But I think we could definitely improve in this area. Our biggest pit fall is not buying ahead of the need. We have growing children and clothing will be needed. We need to buy six months ahead with sales, used, or homemade so that we are not forced to buy full price because we need something *now*. I would really like to get into making or repurposing clothing. One area that we can really save is in diapers. We spend probably about $70 a month on diapers and wipes for all three boys. We are pretty motivated to get the older two boys potty trained. And I have a whole stash of cloth diapers for Aubrey that we could be utilizing. Seems silly to be throwing money away with each diaper change, when we don't have to!! Yes, cloth means more work. But "work" we could be getting "payed" for!
Gardening can, if we are diligent to do the work this spring and summer, save us a lot of money. We eat a LOT of salad. Lots of tomatoes, and cucumbers. Plus other things like green beans, and fruit. We have four blueberry bushes to plant. However it will probably be 3 to 5 years before they are producing of us. That's the problem with some of this. We have to spend the money not only on the blueberry bushes now, but on the blueberries we need to be eating today. So more cost now so that we can save money in a few years. Actually four blueberry bushes will hardly get us a few weeks worth of berries. We will need a lot more bushes. I was just reading someones blog for the first time, so I can't remember who they are, but they were growing some 22 fruit and nut trees, had chickens, had a swing set for the kids and a veggie garden on 1/5 of an acre! Whoa!! We really need to look at the use of our space differently. I would love to plant apple, peach, and cherry trees. Also plant some blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. I'm sure there is much more, but those would be what I would start with. So the money we will be saving in those other areas will be put towards these money saving projects (the fruit trees, and such).
Coupons
The type of foods we buy are the foods that do not have coupons for them. However that being said, there are ways you can work the couponing system with stores like Walgreens and CVS where you can actually make money on items. My goal will be to start that and use that money for our paper products and toiletries. The girls are really excited about clipping coupons. Not sure how long that will last :-) But I let them have that job. I will make sure to link to some of the sites that tell you what deals are out there that you can combine coupons to make money.
Well that is a start for our frugal outline. As the plan becomes more concrete, or changes need to be made, I will update in the following weeks.
I found that blog I was talking about with the 22 fruit/nut trees. I am most certainly putting it in my favorites! Here was a great article on "How Sustainable is Your Kitchen". This reminds me of another way to save, bartering. Yup, bartering. I was at our local in-home grain shop to buy some coconut oil. The owners go to our church. I asked her if they took 'cards' (our visa bank card) and she said they took card, cash, checks and barter. And she was *serious* about the bartering! She and her husband are really trying to get people to see the importance of making your local communities more reliant on you and your neighbors than the government, or businesses over seas. You should check them out some time. This *link* is for their store, and this one is for their *food prep site*. My friend that I got the goat milk from barters as well. I needed milk, and had some freezer meals that we didn't get to before our diet change. So we made the exchange. Dave, from church (you'll see him on the food prep site), advises that you learn a skill that will be valuable for bartering purposes. Another good use for homeopathy! See, I could barter my services. Who doesn't get sick? Ha, ha!
We ran some errands, now time to eat lunch. Moira has asked me no less than 5 times if she can start on the garden. I need to put that child to work :-)
Thursday, March 10, 2011
I want to join this challenge!!
Check out this post at Modern Alternative Mama. (MAM) Let's just say I would be embarrassed to put up my months grocery budget!!! There are a few different challenges I would like to attempt with saving as much money as I can being the goal. We have a lot of debt, and a lot of home projects needing to wait for the funding. My sister and I had this talk in the past, and I may have mentioned it here on my blog at one point. The reality, in my case, of not being in the work force and being able to contribute to the family budget. I already have a job ! :-) I just don't get paid in dollars for it :-) So I am going to write up a plan of action. What things I would like to do to make a dent in our extremely large grocery budget that we have. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY grateful that I have the luxury of such a large budget. But to be honest it has made me lazy in being diligent. So I will put together my own challenge that hits different categories in the budget. I know it would be a LOT of work to write everything down as I do it, but how else will I see the rewards? I really would like to be diligent to take that saved money to put towards our debt and home projects. Some things that I would like to buy, will in the long run save us a lot of money. For example, fruit trees. We eat a LOT of fruit. Too bad we can't grow bananas! We go through those like no tomorrow. I really want to get the girls involved in this. They are always looking for ways to make money, but we have overlooked the money making ability of saving! I think this would be a GREAT homeschool opportunity. I can have them help me to keep track of everything. Plus this means a lot of home made products and work, *and* giving up of some luxuries. I'm getting pretty excited just thinking about all of this. Once we make a plan, I'll post it here. Then each week or month or some sort of scheduled time frame I will post our results. And although I want to be diligent, I want to be realistic that I have a newborn. So anyone want to join me in this journey? Just leave a comment.
Also, if you are looking for a really healthy, and GAPS friendly cake/cupcakes check out MAM's white bean vanilla cake. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm really excited about trying it. What a great idea for our many celebrations. Last night we tried the peanut butter fudge recipe found *here*. Oh. My. Goodness. Everyone raved about it!!! I mean this was seriously good stuff. And what a wonderful, wonderful way to get that good for you coconut oil in to you. It makes me feel good to see Jed down these! He loves them. He also loved the peanut butter brownies. He ate like 4 of them! Lots of calories. Of course we are doing this diet because Jed isn't utilizing the calories we are giving him, but it's good to know that once his body heals we will have some high calorie, high nutrient foods to give him.
Must be off!
Also, if you are looking for a really healthy, and GAPS friendly cake/cupcakes check out MAM's white bean vanilla cake. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm really excited about trying it. What a great idea for our many celebrations. Last night we tried the peanut butter fudge recipe found *here*. Oh. My. Goodness. Everyone raved about it!!! I mean this was seriously good stuff. And what a wonderful, wonderful way to get that good for you coconut oil in to you. It makes me feel good to see Jed down these! He loves them. He also loved the peanut butter brownies. He ate like 4 of them! Lots of calories. Of course we are doing this diet because Jed isn't utilizing the calories we are giving him, but it's good to know that once his body heals we will have some high calorie, high nutrient foods to give him.
Must be off!
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