From the Past: January 2004

From the newsletter archives I found this bit about using retail therapy as a creative booster shot...I think I need to follow my own advice...

1-16-04

 Retail Therapy

Saving money and retail therapy? Do they go hand in hand? And how
could it possibly tie in with a frugal lifestyle and taking time for oneself? 

Well, it does. Here's my theory:

I spend a lot of time trying to save money. I buy clearance when I
need anything, if at all possible. I shop for groceries and goods
by comparing prices and getting what I have to have at the lowest
possible cost and getting out. I never shop for pure pleasure or as
a fill in for other leisure time activities. Shopping is work,
right?

But retail shopping has it's merits if done properly. #1 By going
without an agenda I have time to just look. Our grandparents called
it window shopping. #2 It exercises the legs and #3, it gives us
opportunity to look at what is current, see another's creative
expression in home furnishings, clothing styles, and trends.

How to window shop properly? Start with an open mind. Look at what
the current styles are. How do you measure up? Go in and try on a
particularly appealing style to see if it suits your body type.
Notice I didn't say purchase! Keep a small notebook and pen handy
and write down ideas, colors, etc. that are particularly appealing
to you. If you are struck by inspiration and suddenly realize that
you can use items a,b,c you already have at home to re-create a
table scape or outfit, write it down! You'll surely forget it
otherwise, as the day proceeds.
 A 2011 suggestion here: use that cell phone camera to take photos of the things that inspire you!

Bring a list with you. Check out the clearance racks. You may find
a similar style to those you've just tried on at greatly reduced
prices, or the perfect piece to complete an outfit you already
have. Some of my most loved costume jewelry was purchased for
pennies on the dollar. Ditto with shoes and purses, and
occasionally a blouse or jacket. A Liz Claiborne color blocked
sweater that I wore for years, was purchased for a mere $9, reduced
from $75!  Just be sure you set a limit before you leave home.

Plan to have lunch out. At a sit down place. Not necessarily the
chi-chi place that all are raving about, unless you plan to order
dessert and coffee only. This is an occasion and you should treat
it as such. It's a field trip, a day off from routine, out of the
ordinary.

There you go...Retail therapy on a budget!

How To Buy Groceries: Part III Building the Menu

When I am ready to start a shopping list the first thing I do is create a menu plan for the pay period.  This may sound backwards to some, but truly it's surprising once you sit down with an inventory list of foods on hand, how many meals are available from what we initially think is 'nothing to eat'.  I've done this too many times and know it is true, lol. 

Remember at the end of Part II I suggested you look over your calendar to see what's coming up in the week(s) ahead that will be covered by the menu plan.  It makes a huge difference if you know that only half the family will be home for dinner, or a late evening is ahead, etc.  Now that Kay has left home, I often will not prepare any food on the days when I attend synagogue or I'm out with Mama for the day.  So I generally leave those days blank on my home menu. 

How do I plan meals?  I start with the main dish always.  The main dish is the most expensive portion of any meal and usually the one that requires the most preparation.  Side dishes are seldom so detailed in preparation or costly.  Now here's how I generate savings in my home:  I try to balance the cost of my main dishes in this way:  a more expensive cut of meat will be preceded and followed by an inexpensive main dish.  I personally prefer a meatless meal twice a week or will balance the week by having one meatless and two dishes that combine a smaller amount of meat with rice, beans, or pasta.

I plan as many meals as I can with just the foods I have on hand.  If I find I don't have enough main dishes to cover the pay period then I make a note at the top of the page that will become my shopping list: I need 4 meat meals or I need 3 meat and 1 meatless main dishes.

I do not worry if my menu is not complete.  The point of this exercise is to see how many meals we can make from what we have.  We'll fill in the holes in the menu plan in a moment.  First I want to talk briefly about meal planning.

As said, the first dish on my menu is always the main dish.  A main dish should include a protein, which may be meat, a combination of meat/pasta or rice, cheese with rice or pasta, eggs, or dried beans and rice (which make a perfect protein where our body is concerned).  With a meat main dish the traditional menu would include a vegetable, a salad, a fruit and a starch.  With a main dish of pasta or beans and rice, I try to keep starchy foods to a minimum.  Including a raw fruit or vegetable dish (perhaps as a salad) with any meal you will add bulk, which increases the sensation of fullness.   

I believe the most satisfying meals combines complimentary flavors with opposing textures, and the foods on the plate appeal to the eye as well as the palate.  So plan for varying textures and as much color as you can in every meal.  I try to do this with the menus I plan weekly on this blog, so feel free to study them to gain an idea of how to combine foods into meals that will please.

A good saving technique is to maximize a meat main dish over several days.  For instance, if I prepare a beef roast I will almost always plan to have two or three meals from it if possible.  So the first meal, the 'show' or fancy meal, will be roast beef with appropriate side dishes.  This is perfect for a Sabbath day dinner.  Then I'd follow that meal in a day or two with a second one made from the roast, perhaps roast beef and gravy sandwiches with french fries and a salad, and then in another day or so, I'd take any remaining roast, the gravy and diced potatoes and onions and make hash which I'd serve with coleslaw and green peas. 

Now let's talk about filling in those holes in your menu.  Gather your sales papers for the grocery where you shop (most can be accessed online) and look at the front page and the page devoted to meats.  Note those meats that seem to be a good buy.  For instance, this week's Kroger sales offers up a whole roaster for $3.99.  A roaster chicken is slightly larger than a broiler fryer and will likely weigh in at around 5 pounds.  That's about $.80/pound for the whole chicken.   I can easily make three meals from a whole broiler/fryer chicken and with a roaster, I'd likely be able to make four meals from it.  So I'd be sure to put that roaster chicken into my menu plan.

My first meal would be a roasted chicken dinner and I'd probably use about half that chicken to serve four.  Either I'd slice the breasts and serve only white meat, or if the family preferred a mixture of white and dark, I'd slice the breast to serve two or three and cut the leg and thigh into two pieces to serve two more.  The remaining portion of the chicken would be used as follows:  dark meat to make a casserole dish with rice or pasta.  The remaining breast would be cubed and creamed to serve over toast or made into chicken ala king and served over rice.  That leaves us with the carcass and wings which would be boiled with water, onions, carrots, celery.  This would make a wonderful soup or stew.  The average cost of meat per meal would work out to about $1 per meal...

Now look at the page of fresh vegetables and fruits that are on sale.  The lowest priced items are likely those that are in season.  Eating seasonally is a great way to not only save money but to help the body build immunity.  Our Creator has a perfect plan for our body's nutritional needs and if we eat seasonally we promote that plan.  I supplement the seasonal foods with a few canned or frozen fruit and vegetables.  Why frozen or canned?  Because those foods were frozen/canned during their peak season and it's a less expensive alternative when fresh foods are limited (as in winter months).

I found this chart which helps show which fruit/vegetables are in season and when.  I enlarged the page to 200% to see the chart more clearly:
http://www.good.is/post/seasonal-food-chart/

Complete your menu plan using those items that appear to be the best buys.  In Part IV I'll share how I build my lists (yes that is multiple, I carry more than one) for shopping.

Menu Monday - A Shopping Freeze

Chance and I were just discussing grocery shopping.  I sat down this morning and made out a list, looked at sales ads online and gathered coupons, but it's raining.  So we decided to postpone until tomorrow what I'd planned to do today.  Then we looked over the weather report.  Rain is forecast for tomorrow then too, and Wednesday is already booked and then Thursday is just four days away from the next pay period and five days from Big Shop...Well ultimately the shopping list will be held, the sales scrapped and we'll go into town to the local store and pick up the basics of eggs, bread, milk, produce and I'll just wait.  It wasn't planned that we'd not shop for four weeks at all, it's just worked out that way and it happened to coincide with my Pantry Freezer challenge which is still going strong.  I'll have about 2/3 of this pay period's grocery budget to carry over for stocking up on good sales over the next month or so.  And come next Tuesday, I'll go out and do a proper grocery shopping.

So planning meals this afternoon, starting with the meal I prepared for our main meal at dinnertime today, and while I plan I"m thinking ahead to the next post about how I plan meals.  Doing two things at once...Gee we wives know all about that don't we?

Monday:  Chicken and Rice Casserole, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Waldorf Salad, Iced Brownies
Leftovers combined into a casserole and frozen early in December were topped with crushed cracker crumbs and baked this morning.  I washed and trimmed Brussels Sprouts, sprinkled with sea salt and drizzled with olive oil and cooked them alongside that casserole dish.  Apples and walnuts from our pantry made up a nice crisp salad and leftover brownies from the weekend baking made dessert.  Chance made coffee to go along with our dessert.  I think we both felt we'd had a Sunday dinner right here on Monday.

Tuesday:  Tamale Pie, Corn with Cumin and Lime, Green Salad
Chili and corn muffin mix are combined in a cast iron skillet to make a tamale pie.  Frozen whole kernel corn heated with butter, lime juice and cumin makes a tasty side dish.  A green salad finishes off the meal.  If I've enough time I'll make some homemade butterscotch pudding, using the evaporated milk I opened last week when we had oatmeal for breakfast.

Wednesday:  Loaded Baked Potatoes, Sliced Tomatoes and Cucumber salad, Rolls
I think a baked potato is an excellent meal for winter days.  I've plenty of cheese, sour cream, and chives.  I plan to pick up some turkey bacon while out shopping Tuesday at the local grocer, and check their broccoli as well.  If it looks good, we'll have steamed broccoli to dress up the potatos a bit more.  We can get cucumbers and tomatoes from Florida this time of year and this week both are on sale at our local store, so a salad of these two vegetables will be welcome.

Thursday:  Chicken Pot Pie , Coleslaw, Green Beans
I have a bit of leftover cooked chicken and it will be no trouble at all to make up two small pot pies from scratch.  I may add a bit of chopped apple or segments of clementine to the coleslaw and I've a choice of both frozen and canned green beans.

Friday:  Red Beans and Rice, Coleslaw and Corn Muffins
An easy meal to prepare, the beans are seasoned with about 4 ounces of beef summer sausage (or if I had it on hand, bulk turkey sausage), green bell pepper, onion and red pepper flakes.  It's really an easy meal to prepare but so tasty no one ever guesses that it took just a little while to make.  I serve over top of rice and I'll make extra rice because a rice pudding for dessert this weekend will hit the spot.  I always have too much coleslaw.  I'm sure there will be enough leftover from Thursday's meal to go with this meal.  And by serving it two days in a row, I'll be sure to use it up and not let it go to waste.

Saturday:  Braised ShortRibs, Mashed Potatoes, Green Peas, Crusty Bread
A meal left cooking in the crockpot for after synagogue served with homemade mashed potatoes (I'll cook the potatoes before I leave, then come home and reheat before mashing).

Sunday:  Oven Fried Chicken,  Creamed Corn, Fried Okra, Biscuits, Rice Pudding
I have the option of using a whole chicken, which I'll cut up myself or boneless breasts...I think I'll use the boneless breasts because two of those may be used easily and a whole chicken would generate lots of leftovers.  The corn and okra are in my freezer, stored there since the last of the fresh vegetables were in the market.  I make my own biscuits from scracth and when I lack shortening, as I do at present, I use either oil or butter.  I shall use oil I think, since it is far less expensive than butter at present.  The extra cooked rice from earlier in the week is combined with a can of condensed milk, an equal amount of milk and two egg yolks and reheated together until thickened.  I use lemon zest to flavor the pudding.

How to Buy Groceries: Part II Inventory of Foods On Hand

Having understood the necessity for budget and food storage, determined how often you might shop and whether or not you would also attempt to build a stockpile of foods, we now reach the planning period prior to shopping.

The first steps I take prior to writing out a shopping list is to inventory the foods I have on hand.  I typically will start with the refrigerator because those foods are usually the most perishable.  This is a good time to clean the fridge by the way.  It's also a good time to plan to use up items that are about to expire. 

I must share here that I personally found the greatest problem with my refrigerator was overcrowding.  I simply did not have enough room in my refrigerator to allow for the proper circulation of air.  Unlike the freezer, which thrives on being packed full, the refrigerator requires room for air to circulate around and over foods in order to keep them fresh.  Temperatures inside a refrigerator should be between 38F and 41F.  Any colder and foods will freeze.  Any warmer and it's likely that mold and bacteria will begin to grow. 

Neither eggs nor milk should be on the door of the refrigerator.  Lettuce, cabbage, carrots, apples should ideally be stored in the vegetable crisper.  If humidity inside the refrigerator is too high, the food will spoil more easily.  If too dry, you'll find that the vegetables shrivel and look dehydrated. 

It would do the homemaker well to learn which vegetables require refrigeration and which should be kept elsewhere.  Citrus fruits are best if left at room temperature, and onions and potatoes like dry dark places rather than cold slightly moist air.  It is also well to learn what the expected life of perishable foods might be.  Cheeses generally will keep for months but milk is usually good for just 7 days past the sell by date.
 
As you are cleaning the refrigerator note the expiration dates on the items as you remove them.  Toss any foods that are beyond the expiration date or which have visible mold upon them.

Do you know what I think the two greatest mistakes made by most homemakers?  Most do not remember what  foods (usually leftovers or portions of canned foods) are stored in the refrigerator.  The second is that the grocery shopper buys too much produce at once.

I've learned to get around both these areas of waste in these ways:  leftovers are stored in see-through containers.  If food is in  a container where you can see what it, you are 90% more likely to remove it and use it.  I use glass jars with lids and clear hard plastic containers for this purpose.  A second method that worked well for me at one point was to keep a small plastic basket on one shelf of the refrigerator and drop into it the stored foods I knew must be used up that week. 

I find it worthwhile also to establish zones in my refrigerator.  So all dairy products might be in one area, and the cheeses all corralled into a basket, and all the vegetables in one section and all drinks in another. 

The problem of buying too much produce is easily overcome by buying loose vegetables rather than those packed by the produce clerk.  Choosing to buy one big bunch of grapes rather than a bag with two huge bunches, counting out five Brussels Sprouts per person rather than buying the pound packet is truly a tremendous help.  And of course, it is difficult to resist the idea of all those healthy good foods when you're walking through the produce section...but they are neither good nor healthy if left to spoil.  Be reasonable in what you buy and in what quantity!  If past experience has always found you with one head of broccoli spoiled beyond recognition, buying just enough to serve the family is preferrable.  You'll save the most money by buying only what your family will eat.

Typically I inventory what is in my refrigerator twice a week. This allows me to stay on top of what needs to be used and which leftovers might better be removed and stored in the freezer for a future meal if we cannot use them right away.

The freezer, as said, is best kept well packed with a temperature of 0F.  If you have only the refrigerator freezer you must leave the area near the fan clear.  A chest type freezer does not have that requirement.  I find baskets work well for frozen food storage in my chest freezer.  I can easily lift out the baskets and return them to their place without shifting mountains of frozen foods.  The freezer too benefits from organization, hence the baskets.  I have six baskets: one for poultry, one for beef, two for vegetables, one for fruits and one for sundry items such as cookie dough, pastry, etc.  My little freezer is just 5 cubic feet. 

In the days when it was necessary to keep foods in a refrigerator freezer, I discovered that flat packs of meats and vegetables allowed more to be placed in the freezer.  And to this day, I still try to make flat packs because a pound of meat in a flat packet thaws far more quickly than that frozen in a lump. 

I inventory the freezer about every two weeks. 

My pantry isn't a pantry per se. It is simply the lower half of a wall of cupboards that are deeper and wider than the other cabinets in my kitchen.  It is across the room from a window which allows light to pour into the cabinet when I am trying to see what I have.  This is very important.  If your storage area is too dark consider installing those tap on lights that affix with adhesive and run on batteries.  This cabinet stores pretty much all of our canned goods, cereals, bottled juices and crackers.  I keep an upper shelf in another area as pasta and rice storage and so I can easily get to my foodstuffs.  Because I stockpile foods here, I usually do a quarterly inventory of the cupboard.  I keep a sheet of paper in my homekeeping notebook with the inventory list and I recently decided a copy attached to the cupboard door was also a necessity.  I keep a pen near by so I can write in the additions I make and mark off the items I take out. 

These methods of storage and organization work very well for me.  Keeping the inventory  is the first step in planning to shop for groceries.  I like to make up a mock menu to give me ideas of meals I might make from what is on hand (using the contents of the refrigerator and the inventory of meats from the freezer as the starting basis).   Typically I can usually plan 10 days of meals from what is on hand, and rarely do I find I have less than five meals on my mock menu. 

I check my calendar to see what is coming up in the time frame my grocery shopping must cover.  Are we expecting company or dining out?  Is there a late evening meeting that requires an early and quickly prepared supper?  Is there a holiday or birthday in the time period ahead.  These dates are noted and planned for.  I try to plan a special meal from what we have on hand.  Often this is possible with only one or two additional items required to fill out the meal.

When my children were at home, I also had to check the snack foods and plan for after school snacks.  If I had time to bake and the ingredients required that was well and good, but if my schedule was busy and there was no time to bake I needed to have easy to prepare snacks on hand, such as popcorn, or peanut butter and crackers.  So that too is a consideration when you are taking inventory.

So here is the first step in preparation for shopping: determining what foods you already have on hand and how many meals you can easily prepare with those foods.  Part III will be a detailed account of how I build my menus.

How to Buy Groceries: Part I Budget

Earlier this week I had a request from Tracy to write about how I plan and shop for groceries, plan meals, shop with coupons and use ECBs at CVS.  I tried to write this out as a whole, but the truth is there are many steps involved in buying groceries alone and so I shall break the subject into a series of posts.  I promise to answer all these questions as these posts continue.

I think the first step in planning grocery shopping is to sit down and figure out what you can honestly afford to spend on food for your household.  One website recommends 15% of your annual income as a base amount.  Government websites such as this one at USDA

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/usdafoodcost-home.htm

are based on national household averages.  If you click on the last month's data available in the chart, it will open up a pdf file that shows the average for individuals at different income levels, as well as for various family sizes.  I find my own budget tends to fall almost squarely between the Low cost and Thrifty amounts they cite and it has for years and years now.   A 1950's chart (which I cannot locate at the moment) recommended 25% of the annual income as a budget guideline for foods.  However, it's worth noting that the average cost of food in the 1950's was actually HIGHER than it is now, as difficult as that may be to believe.  Ultimately however, your debt load determines what you can afford to spend. It's all fine and well to say that this chart or that says you can spend this much, but if a chart or percentage figure says you should be spending $200 a week and you only have $100 a week to spend then you'd best plan on spending the $100, at least until you've paid down the debt enough to allow more.

Once you determine what you can afford to spend you have a better idea of what you can afford to buy. That may seem logical but here's where a decision must be reached:

You must determine how often you can/will shop.  Because pay periods for our household are every other week, I shop bi-weekly. Another factor to plan for is storage.    Kay and her husband are paid twice a month but she has seen fit to shop weekly because her food storage is smaller than mine though we each shop for two.  When Chance and I  first set up our household of five children and two adults I had only a refrigerator freezer and tiny kitchen to accomodate our needs.  I had to learn to be very creative in order to store foods and meats safely, including multiple gallons of juice and milk and it was necessary to shop weekly.  These factors must be understood fully before you can even begin to plan your shopping.

You can get creative with food storage.  You might determine that a linen closet would serve better as a pantry than it's intended purpose, or you might use the space under your bed or a dresser drawer.

Then there's another decision to be made.  You could spend the entire amount on food meant to be eaten only in the time frame you've determined works best for you OR you could plan food for meals for the time frame AND build a stock pile.  I prefer this latter method.  It might be more difficult to build a stockpile if you're already spending below the low income averages, but it can be done with careful planning.  This is a decision that only the one who plans meals can make.  And again, food storage makes a difference. 

  I personally think a stockpile is a blessing I can't afford to live without, but in the days when we had an extremely stringent budget it was very hard to build even a small pantry. 

So that's where you begin.  Determining what you can spend, how often you'll shop, where you'll store foods and whether or not you'll plan to build a stockpile in addition to preparing meals. 

Frugal Friday - Living Well

Frugal Friday

Another week...Saving money is work, you know?  It takes effort and time and organization to stay on top of all the potential savings areas.  Sometimes I hit each area that deserves attention.  Sometimes I slip up and miss something or plan poorly.  It happens.  I don't waste time beating myself up.  I just plan to remember the mistake and do better from that point forward.

Consistently missing at hitting a point?  Then stop and analyze why it's a problem area.  Perhaps it's not an area where your frugal muscle is strong.  Consider reading up on the subject, taking lessons from someone who is strong in that area.  Every little bit helps. 

Maybe it's a matter of assessing what your priorities are and determining if it's really an area that requires work or if you can trim elsewhere to offset the costs in that area.  It's all about what is important to you.  As long as there's no hardship being created, as long as the area isn't making your debt grow, then it's okay not to choose to trim that area of your budget.

I'll do as I did last week and try to look at each day to see where I generated savings for my household.

Saturday:  I went to synagogue then drove up to the thrift shop...How was that frugal?  I chose not to go to the store to buy NEW items that cost lots more than thrift items.  I also eliminated several  "Oh that's nice," items from my list of possible purchases.  I have some hard and fast rules when I shop: I can buy books, soemthing useful for the household or that fits my current decor.  I avoid pretty china (except those two particular patterns and one other all of which are hard to find).  I try to limit myself to $30 and finally I shop only twice a month.  I spent $17 Saturday, which means I have an allowance of $13 to spend if I choose to shop again this month.  Here's another thing I do.  I don't carry over a balance.  Once the month is done, the $30 is considered used whether or not I spent it.

I was hungry plus hungry by the time I headed home.  Not a good thing with me.  I have two tendencies: overeat and spend too much.  I had nothing thawed at home, so the two options were take out or grocery store.  I decided to stop at Subway because their 12 inch subs are a good bargain for $5.  I put half the sandwich in Chance's lunch for the next day.

Sunday:  I was invited for dinner at Mrs. Harris' home.  I decided, with the weather warnings it might be best to stop at the grocery and get dog food, milk, eggs.  I picked up this week's Sunday paper, as well.  I scanned the store's weekly ads to see if anything was too good a buy to pass up.  I found only one item:  deli roasted chicken for $4.99, which is about the cost for a whole chicken from the meat department.  A cooked chicken for the same price?  Savings for me.

I filled up with gasoline on my way home.  I've been told all my life that a full tank doesn't allow the collection of moisture inside that one partially filled does, which is common in cold weather.  I don't know if it's true or not, shall have to ask Alan, who is our mechanical genuis. In the meantime, Chance's theory is that it can't hurt to have a full tank of gas when bad weather is coming in.

It was cold and breezy Sunday.  Barely above freezing. I plugged in the pumphouse light, to keep the pipes there warm and I've left it on all week long, day and night. Frozen pipes burst.  That's a very expensive OUCH for a homeowner, not to mention having to do without water.

I checked my supply of bottled water (drawn up right here at home using PET rated bottles). 

Boiled eggs to make egg salad for Chance's lunch.

Monday:  Ice, snow, sleet, cold.  I drew up a bathtub full of water to have on hand just in case we lost power.  That water would be used for flushing and washing.

With a crew that is two men short, Chance felt it was best to push through the snow and ice and make his way to work. He left plenty early so he could drive slowly and carefully.  What we didn't know: the county declared it an 'emergency holiday' and is paying workers accordingly.  If he'd called out we'd have missed that additional money.  It was a nice bonus for trying not to create a hardship for co-workers.

Carb and protein meals are best when the weather outdoors is below freezing.  We've tried having salads and it only means we're starving again in an hour's time.  So not worth it.  Spaghetti with meat sauce is inexpensive and hearty.  I used 1/2 pound ground beef, making my sauce from scratch using tomatoes, tomato sauce, carrots, onions, green peppers brought the cost down even more.  Slow simmering added flavor.

It was so cold and gray outdoors...I kept the curtains pulled in all but the living room.  That kept the drafts down to a minimum.

The heat pump loses efficiency as the temperature drops below freezing.  To keep the unit from working hard, I turned up the propane heater and let it run all day and well into the evening. 

I swept ice from the front porch to keep that area clear for the pets.  And to insure I didn't slip and fall.  Broken bones and injuries are no fun and are surely not a money saver!lol  I tried to clear the back deck but the ice was too thick and immovable.

Tuesday:  Ice still on the ground.  I decided to forgo the Big Shop and stay safe at home.  As I contemplated my pantry/freezer/fridge inventory, I realized that I didn't need to shop at all.  I decided to put off shopping for one week.  That's a savings of 1/2 my grocery budget!

Leftover spaghetti sauce and spaghetti from the day before were in the fridge.  How to use it up?  I decided a pan of lasagna for dinner after synagogue Saturday was one way to use up the sauce and incidentally, the partial box of lasagna noodles in the pantry.  However, I found I barely had enough noodles to make one layer of noodles in the traditional method of making lasagna.  So I decided to break up the noodles and then lay them jigsaw fashion over the meat/cheese layers.  Worked out beautifully!  Why do six noodles make two full layers broken into pieces but 1 layer only when used whole?  I've no idea, but I have a pan of lasagna ready to heat and eat come Saturday.

Temptation when the weather is dreary and curtains are pulled is to turn on ALL the lights. I opted to turn them all off and leave them off.  No need to waste that energy when I wasn't in those rooms.  As the afternoon cleared the skies and sun poured into the living room west facing windows, the room heated up enough to warrant turning down the propane heater.

Cleared my bookshelves and realized I'd purchased two books I already owned.  Not a great loss of money there but certainly a heads up to me to make a list I can carry with me of books I already own by the more commonly found authors to avoid duplicates in the future. 

I pulled about fifty books from my shelves.  No plans to replace them right away, either.  I kind of like the empty spaces on the shelves.   The books culled will be listed for sale on Amazon or eBay.

Our bed pillows had gone flat and I was contemplating replacing them.  I'd just read a post from a firend who washed and dried hers and she said the pillows were fluffy once more.  I decided I had nothing to lose.  At best I'd extend the life of my pillows.  At worse, I'd toss them which I'd meant to do anyway.   Worked out beautifully.  I don't think I'll wash these cheap pillows a second time, but it sure did extend the life of them, fluffing them nicely and making them smell nice and fresh once more.

I washed sheets.  Putting them into the warm dryer immediately after taking out those pillows cut down drying time by about 15 minutes. 

Wednesday:  Chance off work and home for the week.  A big breakfast prepared at home, cost about $1 each.  Compare that to the restaurant costs of eating out.  We saved about $10.

A casserole from the freezer was heated for dinner.  I'd forgotten it was in the freezer until I did that inventory Monday afternoon.  I made a salad and there was dinner from leftovers I'd combined to make a meal in a dish.

We went for a ride Wednesday afternoon.  It was so beautiful outdoors despite the frigid air.  Chance took me out to supper.  We chose Chinese buffet, one of the least expensive options besides the dollar menu.  Ordering water instead of a drink keeps dinner costs down.

 Thursday:  Grandmama used to make Spaghetti and Cheese instead of Macaroni and Cheese.  And there I had all that leftover cooked spaghetti in the fridge.  I made up a batch to serve alongside our roasted chicken. 

Heated canned green beans alongside the chicken and spaghetti dishes in the oven.  I use an enamel pan with a lid to steam vegetables when I'm using the oven.  It works beautifully.

"Dressed up" the green beans using a bit of leftover tomato, a little diced onion and celery and a sprinkling of red pepper.  The cookbook calls them Cajun Green Beans.  We called them delicious.

A special concert at synagogue for the evening was our plans.  Chance had to go over early.  I'd planned to come later, but he convinced me the gas savings was worthwhile.  I had to hurry a bit to get ready but it worked out just fine. 

I packed peanut butter crackers, clementines and water for a snack since we wouldn't have time for supper between prep work and the concert hour.

After the concert we were asked out to eat, but we don't eat late in the evening.  We opted to go along and had  coffee and hot chocolate.  The peanut butter crackers had worn off by that time, so we shared an order of fries.  Nice time out and we enjoyed ourselves.

When others make suggestions of how they earn additional points using a feature of a blog or website I haven't tried before I pay attention.  I earned an additional Five Swagbucks this week by watching Swagtv in odd moments. 

Friday:  Most of the savings this week have been in the kitchen, from the moment I decided to not buy groceries.  We had half the chicken leftover yesterday.  That's another meal for us.  We used the second half of the pound of ground beef for our lunch today. 

Chance wanted steak Wednesday night but I convinced him to wait.  We had steak in the freezer, bought at a very good sale which I could thaw and prepare for our meal tonight.

I needed a dessert for tomorrow, and a side dish.  I had two boxes of brownie mix bought on sale at Christmas time for about $.20 a box.  The two boxes combined with a homemade chocolate frosting make a treat of the brownies.  Rich and  moist and delicious, this trick of frosting boxed brownies came from a friend whose father ran a successful local bakery for many years.  People beg her to bring these to any dinner or party and they are gone in a heart beat. 

The frosting recipe called for buttermilk...None on hand and while I might have used vinegar to sour the milk, I chose instead to use a spoonful of sour cream.  It works just as well and adds creaminess to the frosting.

I had fresh lettuce in the fridge.  There was my side dish, a big salad.  This time of year fresh tomatoes can be expensive, but I don't let that limit me to plain green salads.  Canned kidney beans, drained and rinsed, black olives, fresh onion, carrots, celery are all good inexpensive additions to the salad bowl.

The good thing about culling those books?  I found just loads of good reads on my very own bookshelves.  No need to go to the library.  I saved gasoline and picked something to read off my shelf.

After a bit of reading and work I was able to get AdSense up and running on my blog.  I just needed to figure out where the trouble lay. 


And that's been the week.  Of course, there were lots of other little savings sprinkled all through the week: washing glass jars to reuse as storage containers, washing and drying zippered bags, making sure the washer and the dishwasher each contained a full load and used the shortest cycle, keeping shampoo and toothpaste and detergent levels at recommended amounts, cleaning appliances to keep them in good working order, noting repairs that must be made in the warmer months to keep the house in shape, switching off lights in rooms that weren't in use, lowering the thermostat to 60F at night and when no one was home, reusing printouts that weren't needed (as scrap sheets or to print grocery lists on the blank side), redecorating small areas with items already on hand, reorganizing a problematic cupboard to work more efficiently for food storage, mending clothing...It all adds up.
 
Living Well

We've had a lovely week in many ways.  The unexpected snow and ice was beautiful in it's own way and without the damage that normally accompanies these storms it was almost (and I say that with emphasis) welcome with the change of pace it brought.    It was lovely to shelter in the warm house, stepping outdoors only a few times a day to admire the beauty and tend to the animals and come back into the warm house to snug in once more.  We've still got ice on the back deck and here and there a little patch of snow remains but mostly it's a memory.

The change of routine this week in not going to the grocery was more than pleasant.  It felt out and out abundant!  It's wonderful to know that the stockpile in the home is enough to carry you through a week.  So worth the months it took to build up that stockpile.  And a good opportunity to discover where a little more care in stockpiling might take us a little further along (like in having more coffee on hand, lol).

Luxury: a roll of prepared cookie dough in the freezer requiring only 1/2 hour for fresh baked cookies, just enough time to thaw and bake.

I consider time spent in a thrift shop some of the most pleasing.  I love looking at objects from the past, wonder at the collections that show up (a dozen mushroom salt and peppers anyone?), like using my imagination to see how something might look if it were painted, or recovered.   And then there are the books...Lovely, beautiful shelves of books, just waiting to be reclaimed and taken home for someone to cherish once again.  Time well spent!

Change of pace...That's been the theme of this week: I went to Shabbat service, took off for a jaunt at the thrift shop, enjoyed the snowy weather, and not grocery shopping, went for a long afternoon ride and had supper out,  attended a concert, went out for a late night cocoa, slept in...It's all been different and I've really enjoyed it.  I must say it's a good thing I resolved to be more adventuresome this year...

Shabbat is lovely enough but this week I decided we needed that little something extra.  Why not a candlelit dinner of steak and a gorgeous salad?  Sounded just right to me, too.

So another week ends.  I feel a bit redundant at times in my money saving talk, but it's what I do to afford the little luxuries and the big necessities, too.

Re-Post: A Woman At Home, PtII July 2008

 
A woman at home....I savored that phrase.  I tried other titles on for size: homemaker, stay at home mom, housewife, home keeper.   How I loved the sound of each of these new titles.  I could hardly make up my mind which one I liked the best.

My first two weeks at home were like a vacation.  After struggling with a stressful job, and getting up early and going to bed late for years on end, to lie abed in the morning and truly rest was a real luxury...But then I really woke up one morning and realized that the vacation wasn't a vacation at all.  I'd taken on a vocation, a new job, and I needed to begin to undertake my new duties right away.
I felt so overwhelmed when I realized the sheer amount of work that needed to be attended to in my home.

How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  I fell back on an old habit.  I made out a list of the areas that needed to be addressed.   First there was housework.  Years of working crazy hours and seeing the house in dim evening light had kind of hidden the clutter and the layers of dust and the desperate need to really work on the living conditions my family had been enduring.

Then there was our budget.  If we were going to make this a permanent position, I needed to tackle all those budget areas that needed to be trimmed, cut away or finely honed.

There were children.  One who needed a job and me to transport her to look for it, two who needed a bit more discipline and attention and responsibility than they'd had in their largely unsupervised past.
And finally there was yard work.  We'd been in our new home for over two years and nothing had been done about the grounds.  Things looked pretty grim outdoors, too, especially when seen in the clear morning light.

I suddenly felt overwhelmed.   I'd somehow thought being at home, for the first time without a toddler or infant in arms, was going to be a piece of cake.  There was a need for real work and it was not a type of work I was accustomed to doing.   Housework and yard work are physically demanding tasks, especially when you're brand new to them.  I was more accustomed to customer service/business office type work.  I knew that this experience would also be helpful in my home, but it encompassed only a tiny portion of the whole job. 

 
I had to get organized.  After years of working in the business world, I knew full well that until my home was in a reasonable state of order we'd live in a state of near poverty.  Wasted time almost always results in wasted money.  Wasted food equals wasted money, as well.  The first two areas to tackle were obviously my food storage areas, and that budget.  

Honestly the housework and yard work had waited for a long time.  A little longer wasn't going to do any real lasting damage.   As for the children, I realized that now that they were older, I had at my hand individuals who were more than capable of being my work mates.  And I learned quickly just where their individual skills could help smooth the transition from working mom to stay at home mom and homemaker.  

I started with a working budget.  I'd had an idea of what it would be like to live without income from my job.  We'd played with figures on paper in anticipation of the change, but by the end of the first month we had a much better idea of what money we'd have coming in and what needed to go out monthly as well.  Our figures were off by a little.  For one thing, my daughter found a job right away, but she lacked transportation.  She also didn't have a driver's permit.  That meant I was her main form of transportation and the gasoline costs were not significantly decreased as we'd anticipated.  Nor was our mileage decreased, so the hoped for reduction in insurance coverage was not possible. 

 
It also took a little while to accustom ourselves to being more watchful of where and how we spent money.  I was used to picking up takeout when I felt overly tired, but we soon discovered that eating take out even once a week was too much for our straining budget.  Spending the weekend wandering the mall or shopping center was no longer an option for leisure purposes.  We'd always lived carefully by our budget, but we had to really tighten our belts and remain vigilant now that I was at home.

When our daughter received her first check we worked out a reasonable amount to be paid weekly towards fuel costs.  It didn't by any means cover what it cost me to make two trips a day.  We decided that she should pay only what she might pay if she were driving her own car to and from work daily.  
I talked with our insurance agent and we discovered that moving our home owner's insurance to their agency, changing insurance carriers on our vehicles, reducing coverage on the car that was paid off, all helped to significantly reduce our monthly budget to the tune of about $100 a month.  

I still recall the joy I felt when I called my husband at work and said "Hey guess what?  I just saved us $1200 a year and I did it in less than fifteen minutes."  I'll never forget his reply: "That's a pretty good wage for 15 minutes of work."   I'd already been struggling with the idea of not having an income of my own to contribute to the household.  I've since discovered that many women who move from working outside to staying at home, struggle with this, as well.  His words jolted me awake.  I did have an income:  it was whatever savings I could make for our household!  

I worked constantly reviewing our bills to see where we might make other reductions.  And we did manage to reduce several.  We got very strict about the thermostat on our air conditioner.  We set it considerably higher than we'd previously set it.  We took advantage of the cool morning air and our box window fans for use in the early hours.  We trimmed our phone bill and carefully watched long distance charges.  If we received a bill for any service or commodity, we looked to see how we might decrease the amount paid monthly.

I got serious about our food management.  I love to cook.  For years on end, the only creative outlet I had was cooking.  The amount of waste in both our budget and in fact came home to me the day I began to work on our food storage areas.  Expired foods, spoiled foods all went into the trash.  And as I watched the trash can fill, I realized that I had literally thrown away hard earned dollars with every item that was tossed.  Remember my elation at saving $1200 on our annual insurance bills?  I wept when I saw that trash can full of food.

Necessity demanded in our early years of marriage that I stretch our food dollars until we could hear them squeak.  Over the intervening years, as our family size decreased and our incomes increased we'd relaxed our vigilance.  I realized that I really needed to trim the food budget hard.  Chance requested that I find a figure somewhere between "We'll eat anything if it will help stretch a dollar" and "What budget?"  I used online government resources to determine the proper budget for a family of our size and income.  And then I reduced it down to suit what I felt was a little more reasonable.  I find government guidelines are national averages and they may be low or high depending on where in the U.S. you live.  

I polished up my old skills.  Once upon a time in one of my 'at home' phases I'd been something of a coupon queen.  In my working years, that skill was dropped.  I'd run into the grocery on my way home from work and pick up whatever I could remember we needed.  Now grocery shopping became a full blown task all it's own.  I follow the same routine these days. 

First, I inventory our foods and see what meals I can manage before I begin to make my shopping list.  Then I see how many more meals I can prepare with only a minimal number of ingredients added.  Then I make out my shopping list based on sales papers and those menus.  Then I gather coupons to match to sales and needs on my list. 

And finally I devote a whole day to nothing but shopping.  I go from one store to another to get the best possible prices on every item.  I've found that with a lot of care, we manage very well with  the budgeted amount.

Working with our budget, and getting our food management under control meant I'd taken two bites of the elephant.  Now I was ready to take another bite. 

 
Labor camp or Day camp?  In order to get our household and yard in order, I needed to enlist my children's help.  While the older kids had always been assigned chores, they were virtually unsupervised.  That meant that sometimes jobs were done and sometimes they weren't and if no one noticed then they felt they could gradually not do them at all.  

 
Suddenly mom was at home and she was watching to see that tasks were accomplished.  I knew that I had to be an example.  That meant that I couldn't sleep late or sit and eat bonbons and read romance novels.  I had to do my jobs and do them as well as I possibly could.  It meant I had to push through when I felt unwell or lazy.  Being an example is hard work!

 
The kids were prone to complain at first.  They whined, they procrastinated and they just plain rebelled.  But eventually they realized that chores and privileges went hand in hand.  And they also realized that their chores could be accomplished well and hours of leisure would follow.

The youngest could make her own bed, pick up her toys and put her clothes in the laundry basket.  The older ones could do other more detailed work and certainly that fourteen year old boy had brawn to match my desire to do heavy lifting and digging.  

It helped that I was working right along side them.  And gradually the house, the budget, the yard and the children all came into alignment.  We found a routine that worked for us.  As tasks were accomplished there was more leisure time and that allowed us to create a fun day camp for the youngest.  Her much older brother got so interested in creating the day camp that he began to plan her daily activities for nature walks, and such.

 
And so the elephant was eaten.  Or so I thought.  But as in most jobs, I'd only just begun.