Owlhaven » Frugality

Mucho randomness

Owlhaven — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:30:46 +0000

The tail end of summer is roaring past me at ridiculous speed.

We opted to skip the ‘big’ fair this year– it costs so much!– but had a great time going to a church carnival on Saturday. They had 50-cent hot dogs, corn dogs, burgers, ice cream, snow cones and cotton candy, if you can believe it, plus free drinks and watermelon. We gave the kids 3 food coupons each and they had great fun eating their way around the place and hanging out with friends. There was also face painting, a bike demo, a car show, a Boy Scout rope bridge and other coolness. Good fun.

My tomatoes are finally coming on– got 9 quarts canned with the able assistance of the kids today. Hooray for them! I’ve done my fill of cucumbers already…might do a bit more relish later this week since my family really loves that. Am also planning to buy peaches this week for canning.

My $700/month pay-only-cash-for-groceries went well this month. I’m feeling like it is doable long term, tho I will definitely benefit from meal planning to keep it feeling easy and not tight. Sometimes I just fly by the seat of my pants with meals, which results in more trips to the store. Much better for the budget to have a plan. The other day I made 3 lasagnas, which felt like a nice accomplishment, and reminded me how nice it is to have prepped food in the freezer. I’m thinking of doing a major cooking day in the next week or two– make a bunch of casseroles, brown some burger, cook some chicken, so I’ll have a bunch of easy meals handy as we start school soon.

Speaking of school, this summer I had the kids continue to do a bit of math and reading all summer, and I really liked it. No one had the chance to forget things, and we definitely fit in learning, albeit at a more relaxed pace. This summer we’ve worked through a couple of the Little House books with the youngest girls, and I’ve so enjoyed it. This year I want to do more reading aloud TO the kids– interesting books that we’ll all enjoy. And having done some school all summer, I’m not dreading jumping back in like I often do near the end of the summer. It’s nice.

We’ll be butchering one of the cows at the end of the month. I’m looking forward to getting my freezer stocked again. John is wondering if we should just butcher both, to save on hay (and livestock hassle) this winter, but I really have no idea where we’d put two cows. When we butchered one a couple years ago, I had to borrow freezer space from my dear MIL, and I’m pretty darned sure she doesn’t have that much space… Am thinking maybe the butcher might rent us space? But I have no idea how much that might cost…

One final bit of news: I’ve been asked to speak at the Oklahoma state homeschool conventions next April. I’ll be leading 3 breakout sessions, which is pretty exciting. Among other things, I’ll be talking about grocery budgeting, streamlining your kitchen time, and prioritizing time when you’re homeschooling multiple children. Speaking of prioritizing time, I’m also trying to figure out how many of my Oklahoma friends I can meet up with while there. It should be really fun!

How to have a great yard sale

Owlhaven — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:12:13 +0000

OK, I am venturing into unfamiliar territory– gearing up to HAVE a yard sale this weekend instead of my usual yard sale shopping. Things I’m aiming to do:

Make good signs and place them at key intersections within a mile or so.
Label prices clearly.
Keep prices affordable (I’m pricing my clothes at 50 cents to $1.)
Hang as many items as possible for easy visibility.
Sort clothes by size so that people can find what they need. (I’m borrowing several tables from church so I can really spread things out.)
Place large items near to road to attract attention.

What else? If you’ve had a successful yard sale, what tips can you share with me?

West African Sweet Potato Soup

Owlhaven — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 04:36:14 +0000

(Gluten free)

Preparation Time: 30-40 minutes
Serves 6

1 large sweet potato, cubed
3 cups water

Bring water to boil in a large pot. Peel and cube sweet potato, adding to the water once it comes to boil. When water returns to a boil, turn heat down to medium, and let potatoes simmer for 10-15 minutes as you complete the next steps of the recipe.

1/2 of a large onion, minced
1 cup fresh green beans, cut into ½ inch pieces
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil

While sweet potatoes are cooking, chop onions and green beans. Melt butter and oil in a medium skillet on high. Add onions and let cook, stirring frequently, until onion is wilting and getting browned bits, about 3 minutes. Add green beans and continue cooking on high for 3-5 minute more, until beans soften and start to get some browned bits. Then scoop onion and green beans into the pot with the sweet potatoes and continue simmering soup on medium low.

In a blender combine the following ingredients:

2 cups pureed tomatoes
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 tablespoon salt
¼-½ teaspoon cayenne, depending on how much heat you like

Puree until mixture is smooth and thick. If it gets too thick to process well, take a ladle or two of water out of your sweet potato pot and pour it into the blender. When the contents of the blender looks creamy and well mixed, add it to the simmering sweet potato/onion mixture. Stir to combine and let simmer on medium low for 5-10 more minutes to combine flavors.
Serve with good bread and a salad.

Our morning

Owlhaven — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 06:04:05 +0000

This morning we headed out the the garden to see what was going on: apparently a lot more than I realized. We spent probably an hour picking, and then came back into the house to do something with all of our bounty.

First on the agenda was sweet relish. The kids diced about a dozen cucumbers. Into that I added diced onion, sweet pepper, grated zucchini and typical sweet pickle seasonings: turmeric, cloves, mustard, celery seed, sugar, and vinegar. Then we heated the mixture to boiling, ladled it in pint jars, and ran them through the canner to seal them up. We got a dozen pints today.

Next came sweet pickles. The knife work is less time consuming, and you soak the slices in salted ice water for a few hours before canning, but the recipe after that is very similar to relish. Today we got 10 pints of pickles. I didn’t get them into the canner until after VBS this evening, but they’re finally done– hooray!

My 5yo begged and pleaded to be allowed to help slice cucumbers, but I wasn’t quite ready to hand her a sharp knife. So she got the job of cutting the ends off the green beans with a butter knife, which she handled very skillfully. Once the beans were ready, I just stuck them on a big cookie sheet in a single layer to freeze. It might have been more ideal to blanch the beans before freezing, but that was all I had energy for today. Tomorrow I’ll scoop them into quart ziplocks and return them to the freezer. Nice to be getting a stash of food stored away for the winter!

$10 Date Success

Owlhaven — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:00:41 +0000

For the past two evenings John and I have had time to ourselves, thanks to vacation Bible school and the fact that the only solitary thing I was asked to do for it this year was to bring a few pounds of grapes. (Hip hip hooray! And thank you to all the wonderful teachers, craft leaders, rec leaders and snack people who are contributing to the fun my children are having this week! I’ve done one or two of those jobs over the years and not a one of them is easy.)

Anyway, John and I and our time…. The first evening since we couldn’t really think of what to do, we drove around running little errands. Fred Meyers had 79 cents/lb grapes and $1.59/lb hamburger. We got $10 bed sheets at Target and $2.49 clearance t-shirts for our son who’s heading off to college oh-so-soon. We swung by Home Depot for 400 pounds of concrete mix for a project of John’s and 2 types of basil plants (cinnamon basil and Thai basil) that I hope will thrive in a pot in my kitchen. Wanna guess which items I carried out of Home Depot?

We finished off the evening with 60-cent ice cream cones at Arctic Circle. Aren’t we romantic? Actually the evening was fun. Relaxing. Nothing too frivolous, nothing too expensive. But let’s face it: shopping dates may be good for the company, but they are not gonna save ya much money.

This evening we came up with another plan. I packed root beer and grapes and cucumbers into a cooler. We grabbed books and a blanket and John’s mp3 player. After we dropped kids off at church we stopped at the grocery store deli for fried chicken and some good bread. $6.

Then off we went to spread our blanket in the grass in the nearest park for a picnic. The 85-degree day felt utterly perfect in the shade of some big trees.

Blue sky above.

Green grass under bare feet.

Good company and good conversation.

Books and a blanket for basking in evening light after dinner.

Sweet.

Money saving theory: cash only

Owlhaven — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 04:52:09 +0000

When John and I first got married, we were in school and very broke. We’d walk to the store two blocks away, get cash with our bank card, and come back with as much food as we happened to have money for at the time. We never came close to starving, but when the money was done, so was the shopping. Plain and simple.

Somehow over the years we got used to the convenience of debit cards and checks– backed of course by that ever-tempting line of credit. And there were times that we’d go ahead and buy a bit more at the grocery store, knowing that payday was tomorrow and the credit line would ‘rescue’ us if we went over our limit.

Cash or not, I’ve always been pretty careful at the grocery store–see the sidebar for our grocery expenses in the past year. But the line of credit attached to our checking account did make me more relaxed about my grocery spending. Recently I wondered if the cash-only approach would help me impulse-shop less and pull our grocery bill just a little lower.

Instead of our usual $800-$900 per month, for July I decided to budget $700, which is a little more than $23 a day. (I’m feeding 11 people most days.) We put a week’s worth of grocery money ($175) into an envelope, and repeated that every week, with the aim of spending no more than $700 for the month.

When I went to the store (always with a list!), I kept a running tally in my head of what went into the cart, rounding up to the nearest dollar for simplicity. I found that I actually enjoyed keeping a closer eye on the totals. And it was much easier to skip a $5 impulse buy knowing that I’d already spent all but $22 of that week’s money.

At the end of the month — no surprise — we’d spent $700 and no more. Actually, it was probably a bit less, judging by the number of quarters jingling in my purse. I didn’t bother to count my change this month. But it was nice to know the change was there, in case we ran out of milk or baking powder or whatever.

In August I’m open to spending more than $700 if we really need to– I’ll keep you posted. But I’m optimistic we’ll do fine with $700. And if this turns out to be doable long term, we could save $1200 or more over a year’s time. I think we’ve gone back to cash grocery shopping full time.

Money saving theory: Coupons

Owlhaven — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:37:19 +0000

I decided quite awhile ago that couponing does not work for me. Well, in tiny amounts it is fine. I probably use a coupon every other month, for a grand total savings of perhaps $10 a year. But serious couponing, with the binder and the circular-sawingcutting and the combining sales and rebates and coupons? I don’t have time for it.

Many penny-pinchers disagree with me. Vociferously. (Or politely, depending on their bent.) There’s sooo much money to be saved with coupons, they insist. You save many dollars for every hour invested. It’s like leaving money on the table not to use coupons! And after reading a particularly well-reasoned argument, I will occasionally revisit that decision of mine. Re-examine it. Sometimes even try again.

Most recently, this week. I clipped a bunch of coupons from the Sunday paper, the most interesting of which were for toothpaste and canning lids. Then I happened across a blog talking about this week’s good buys at Walgreen’s and Target. I got about 8 windows open on my computer, planning to print coupons as soon as I got some paper in my printer. Then the day dragged me away and beat me up a little.

When I got back to the computer and saw all those open windows, it looked exactly like a to-do list that I had zero energy for. Not to mention my husband was already in bed and the printer which resided in the bedroom would surely awaken him. And I never buy Hot Pockets. Never, never. My poor deprived kids. I go to Target as little as possible because the pretties suck me in. And (as you may already know) I hate Walgreen’s with a white hot passion.

So let’s recap– couponing uses time I don’t want to spend and drags me places I have no time or inclination to go and coaxes me to buy things that nevernevernever get onto my grocery list in real life. That saves me how?

No thanks.

I’d much rather save money by doing things that already fit my busy life and feel comfortable to me. I’ll skip the Hot Pockets and make my own pizza. I’ll buy 75-cent Aim when I’m already at Winco instead of matching sizes/brands and getting Colgate at a store that makes me bonkers. I’ll can garden tomatoes instead of buying Prego on sale. I’ll buy dry beans and make my own chili instead of using coupons for Nalley. I’ll make pancakes and oatmeal for breakfast instead of Cap’n Crunch.

I probably will use that coupon for canning lids, if I remember before it expires. But in general I will leave to couponing to the people who’ve already mastered it and love it. (You go, girls!)

I’m sticking with what works for me.

——-

Coming later this week: a money saving theory that actually does work for me! (Hint: look in my sidebar at my July grocery spending!)

$10 Dates

Owlhaven — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 22:02:12 +0000

For awhile my hubby and I got in the habit of going to a nice restaurant each time we had a date. Fun. But twice a month at $40-50 a meal is pretty darned expensive. We’ve decided to challenge ourselves to see how often we can stick within a $10 budget and still have fun. I’ll be keeping you updated on how we do.

Saturday John and I put the kids in the charge of the teenagers and a nature video, and took off to run errands. Our old microwave died a couple weeks ago, and we went to check out one that was advertised on Craigslist for $10. It turned out to be in good shape, so we happily parted with a $10 bill and drove away. Along the way we spotted some yard sales, and spent an hour or so toodling through neighborhoods in search of old treasure. I found John some jeans and shorts for $1.50. He got a pair of tiny speakers for his mp3 player for $2.

By then it was lunch time. The kids were doing fine, so John and I decided to grab something to eat before heading home. I tossed out the idea of Texas Roadhouse , but we decided to go affordable, and opted to share a 3-item entree at Panda Express. The grand total for the meal was less than $8. Counting our yard sale and Craigslist purchases we ended up spending more than $10. But — hello– we came home with a microwave!– and we thoroughly enjoyed our time together. We are already thinking creatively about our next budget date. Maybe sushi in the park? A free concert? Ice cream and a dollar movie?

How about you? Tried dating on a budget? I’d love to hear your ideas. And if you’re looking for an affordable meal out in the near future, this Quizno’s coupon will get you a meal for $3.

Linky Love, How-To Edition

Owlhaven — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:14:47 +0000

**The winner of the Berry Bible is Alpa. Email me your address and I’ll get the book sent your way!***

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Today’s Links:

How to use 3×5 card to clarify your life
How to be content with what you have
How to pick healthy food for $1/pound
How to save money and still have a life (my first budgeting post at Blogher.com– more later if there’s interest)

That yard sale game

Owlhaven — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:21:29 +0000

All those yard sale goodies? $13.20. Which means the closest guess was from Kelli C. of BusyBusyMommy. I lucked out at several different sales. First was a church yard sale. At church sales, you’ve got to be willing to really dig, because there tends to be a lot of old stuff. However, the prices are usually excellent. We got a bunch of clothes for 25 cents an item. The dishes also came from that church sale. $2.25 for the entire heap. Sweet.

Another sale was selling clothes for $2 a bag, which also helped our total cost. The shoes were 25 cents a pair. All in all it was a really successful 2 hours of shopping. Probably the best find from a kid’s point of view was the little white dress on the far right in the picture. My 8 year old daughter was so thrilled with it that she had to try it on three times on Saturday, and then delightedly wore it to church on Sunday. Oh, the cuteness…I should take a picture for you.