Frugal Accomplishments the Last Three WeeksI

Wow, time slipped away from me this month.  It's been rough around here with trying to get my husband well (he's finally on the mend, thank goodness) and then after he started feeling better I finally came down with the cold that I'd managed to avoid for a good month.  I popped vitamins and worked really hard on getting well and thankfully this is the first time I've caught a cold in years where it did NOT go into a nasty cough for months that would finally land me at the doctor's, so yay for that!

I got a couple of e-mails the last couple of weeks and did not have time to reply to them, so wanted to apologize to those that were nice enough to write.  I'll try to reply to them as soon as I have time to breathe around here.  Between working on making up Alvah's learning plan for next school year (which, as any homeschooler will tell you, creating your own individual learning plan, or ILP for short, is a LOT of work), getting the daughter back and forth to work, driving practice with the daughter, getting the husband's car into the body shop to finally get repaired, Father's Day and other stuff...it's been crazy busy on top of people being sick.

But, yeah, let's fill you in on stuff that has been happening around here.

Summer, if you can call it that, is flying by.  Where a bunch of people in the Lower 48 are dealing with hot weather and drought (prayers are with you all), we are dealing with cold weather and rain.  Like constant rain and lows in the 40s at night.   The mosquitos love it.  Humans, not so much.  Everyone I talk to is so tired of bad weather as we've had it constantly the last three years it seems.  So far this Spring/Summer we've had four days of nice weather.  Four.  The last couple of them were last week and the trees finally leafed out completely so it looks like summer outside, which is nice.  Unfortunately, Summer Solstice is now passed, so we are looking forward to the dark coming back, but we still haven't really had much sunny summer yet (Glen Allen even had snow just a bit ago...I mean geez!).  Up North it seems like they are getting more sun in North Pole and Fairbanks (I watch Somer's in Alaska on YouTube), but around here in South Central/The Valley, the weather hasn't been grand and it is wearing on people's moods.

I have worked hard to keep things like the furnace turned off as much as I can around here, which has reduced our gas bills compared to last year at this time.  Which, honestly, with how energy costs have gone up everywhere, I feel pretty good about that :).

Anyway, onto money saving matters around here...

1.  I have been asked to share any tips I've been personally using to save money on groceries.  I'll share a post about that, hopefully in the next few days.  I'm not sure how helpful people will find it, but I'll share what is working for me and my family.

2.  For Father's Day, instead of going out to eat, we stayed home and I made one of my husband's favorite meals, tempura cod and French fries (my version of fish and chips).  I made a lemon pound cake from a mix I had in the pantry for dessert.  The only purchase I ended up making that day was I bought the HBO mini-series "Chernobyl" off of Amazon (which I budgeted for :) for us to watch as my husband and I have really been wanting to see it (we've only watched two parts so far, but it is really good).  

3.  My daughter lost a button on her favorite shirt.  She loved the buttons on the shirt as they are a very stylized silver colored button.  I was pretty sure we were not going to be able to replace the button with one out of the button jar, but my husband, daughter and I went through all the buttons in our big button jar to try and find a button that she liked, would fit in the button holes on the shirt (they are smaller than a normal button hole and the shade of pink of the shirt is hard to match thread-wise, so I didn't want to expand a button hole if I could avoid it) and would go with the other buttons on said shirt.  We finally found a pearl colored button that she liked, would fit the holes on the shirt and I figured if I rearranged the remaining buttons and put the pearl button on the top hole it would just add a bit of flair to the shirt.  The daughter was happy with the results and I was happy that she was happy :).

4.  I mended a shoddy seam on one of my husband's work shirt pockets.

5.  I darned one of my son's favorite socks that he likes to wear over the bad eczema on his foot at night (the sock takes a lot of abuse because he itches his foot through it and then it gets pretty saturated with moisturizing lotion).  He really likes the sock as it fits over his eczema just right so I was careful with the darning to make sure the sock would hold it's shape well.  So far, he's been okay with the repair, so I'm happy.

6.  I took remnants from the fridge that needed to be used up and made a breakfast casserole for breakfasts this week.  I'm still new to the world of breakfast casseroles, so I over browned the cheese so it's kind of interesting to chew the exterior of the casserole, but the flavor is good.

7.  A while ago I decided not to do a CSA this summer like I had in the last few years.  I'm really glad I made the choice I did when I look at the weather, as I doubt the CSA members are going to be getting much produce this summer and goodness knows how delayed it would be in starting with the weather has gone.  And not doing it saved me money up front, so there was that savings too.

8.  I had bought a few new comforters, all the same size (Queen) to replace some that were falling apart (Alvah is hard on bedding as I end up having to wash comforters and things a LOT with him)  from Amazon and then I ordered comforter covers/duvet covers for each bedroom.  The comforters themselves were cheap (20.00 a pop), but were put together really cheap as well so I've had to re-sew a few of them on the edges as the seams are not great.  Sadly, I had bought that particular brand/type as I've had one comforter in that brand on my bed for a long time and it's held up nicely for a cheap comforter...but they have definitely gone down hill in quality (items at the used stores having gotten so expensive, it really isn't worth my time to look there for things like comforters, unfortunately).  Times like this I'm really glad to have basic sewing skills and a good store of thread.  I figure I'll have to repair a few more, I'm sure, but at least the comforter covers will help cover up any repair work I've had to do and my seams should last a lot longer than the shoddy ones they came with :).

9.  My son really scratched up one of his favorite Charlie and Lola discs.  I tried to repair it, but failed.  I was able to find a decent priced replacement on E-bay (the discs are getting harder and harder to come by and Amazon wanted a fortune for a used copy) and ordered it, but in the meantime I searched around and found that Roku has Charlie and Lola available to watch for free.  So, he was able to watch his favorite episodes of the show on his TV while waiting for his replacement disc to come in the mail.

10.  I gave my husband and son haircuts.

11.  My daughter's desk drawer broke and we realized that it had a very specific runner part for the drawer that was made of plastic.  I went searching around and actually found a bulk package of the part on Amazon for not much money at all on sale with a coupon.  I ordered them and the part worked perfectly.  My husband is also glad we have back up pieces for the drawer as we're not overly fond of plastic parts for longevity, so if it breaks again, at least we have back up repair parts.

12.  A while ago I had bought replacement Rubbermaid containers for lunches to replace ones I had bought a looonnnnnggg time ago.  We were down to not a lot of containers left as we had thrown them out over time as they got melted and things, so I ordered a big kit off of Amazon that was like 1/2 the asking price from the warehouse as the original packaging had gotten damaged (supposedly...I didn't find any damage to anything when it came in, so I was happy).  We started using the new containers and they were NOT holding up well, at all.  Combine that with me reading about micro-plastics and how they stick around in the human body and things and I just decided I didn't need my husband nuking his lunch in the plastic containers.  

I decided to purchase some glass lunch containers for him.  After much searching (I will readily admit I spend hours looking for a good bargain to save money...I'm cheap what can I say), I found these (note:  affiliate link) and ordered them. With the 10.00 off coupon (still active as of the posting of this post it looks like), the containers were only 19.99, they nest inside each other via shape (you get three sets of three; rectangles, squares and circular containers) for actually pretty convenient storage, the lids (so far) don't leak and they are working really well and my husband seems to really like them.  The only drawback I am finding to glass containers is that I have to put like a paper towel or something over the food if I am worried about it spitting over the microwave as I haven't found any glass containers where the lids are microwavable yet.  I am not worried about melting them in the dish washer as I don't use the drying function on my dishwasher, so I'm not sure how dishwasher safe they are (just a warning there).  Will I replace all of my plastic containers with glass?  Probably not.  But for my husband's lunches, this is working out well.

13.  I am always thinking of different ways to get nutrition into Alvah without him turning on food and things.  I finally, after much debate, broke down and bought a 9x13 cast iron baking dish (tip to local peeps:  If you want one, get it through Amazon.  It is at least 10.00 cheaper than trying to buy one locally...I looked).  The downside is trying to figure out how to store the sucker as it is heavy and bulky.  At the moment it is parked solidly on my stovetop pretty much 24/7 as I really don't have room to store it somewhere else.  

BUT, the upside to this thing is amazing!  I am using this to bake my son's French fries in, am using it to bake home made breadsticks in (I bake breadsticks in a sheet and then cut it into strips to make them like Pizza Hut breadsticks...it was the best way to trick the son into eating home made breadsticks :), and using it for the intent I bought if or (to leach iron into his food).  BUT, I've found so many more awesome uses for it in the kitchen.  For one, I FINALLY have a roasting pan that can go from oven to stovetop and I was only out 30.00 versus the tons of money those things cost in stainless steel.  I have used it for a griddle pan for smaller things that I didn't want to pull out my big cast iron griddle for.  I'm even considering putting one of my bigger cast iron pieces on top of said pan in my oven and trying to make sourdough baguettes in the pan to get the oven rise/steam baking that only cast iron can give you.  I never thought one pan would be so darned useful, but I am so glad I purchased it!  I bought this one (once again, affiliate link there).  I love Lodge cast iron.  The only piece I've ever been kind of disappointed in is I bought the 10" two handled skillet with a Christmas gift card last year and it feels like it is cheaper quality than any piece of Lodge cookware I've ever bought before.  The handles, especially, are really thin compared to like my 12" pan.  

So, yeah, I'm going to call it good there for now.  I know there is more to this list, but I have a ton to do and can't find where I put my list (I'm sure it is somewhere safe...anyone else do that???).  So, before we go let's get to a garden update!

First the flowers have been very happy with the amount of rain we've been getting and when we don't get rain, I've been taking the opportunity to fertilize everything.  Petunias are heavy feeders, so every time I fertilize the plant, it goes nuts and produces more flowers.  We've really been enjoying the basket of pretty we have out on the deck :).  Also, enjoy the photo bombing cat.  We were both in a hurry to get inside as it started to pour as I was trying to take pictures.

Next up, the tomato plants haven't done much with how cold it has been, unfortunately.  The few sunny days we've had the tomato plants loved and put on some small teeny tiny tomatoes, but that's as far as they've gotten.  Sad, but with tomato plants up here it is always a gamble with the weather.  So far, this year, I'm losing.

The parsley planter is going well, which is great as I am nearly out of parsley and really want to dehydrate and put up a bunch this year :).

The second herb bed isn't doing great.  The basil I was able to get one harvest off of for dinner one night, but it hasn't grown much, as in any that I have seen, since then, with the cold and rain.  The rosemary has grown a teeny bit, but not much and even the parsley plant in that bed isn't doing much.  

The chard is growing and isn't minding the cold.  It hasn't grown as much as I'd like as I'd love to start harvesting the outer leaves at some point, but we are getting there.  

I am THRILLED that this week I'll be able to start harvesting lettuce, though as the planter has finally filled out to the point I think I can finally get a full salad out of the lettuce.  I've been waiting excitedly for this time as lettuce at the store is expensive, so I'm going to enjoy eating our lettuce as long as I can.  I mean look at how yummy this lettuce looks....

Yum!!!

The empty planters where the cabbages had been, I did, indeed plant seeds in.  The seeds never germinated, probably due to the cold, and then the planters the ants found and decided to nest in (a new one on me for a container garden...I haven't had that problem since I left Pennsylvania years ago).  We are definitely having ant problems this year as the diatomaceous earth I normally spread around the house just gets washed away with how much rain we're getting.  We are looking into other means to eradicate them as carpenter ants are a real fear for us as we have a wooden foundation house, so yeah...a bit concerning on the ant front.

And there you go guys and gals.  A quick update on our lives around here.  I hope your summer is going okay (sorry to those effected by the smoke in Canada...we've been smoked out from wildfires a few times and it is horrible, so I really feel for you all) and you are able to have some fun and get things done as well.

Frugal Stuff from the Rest of May and The Garden for 2023

Hello everyone.

What a month.  Busy, hectic and a bunch of not great stuff happening around here.

I managed to get the kids through the rest of the school year and got final grades and work samples in.  The first couple of days of Summer Break went great.  We had a decent morning the first day, so I took the kids for a really pretty walk through different parts of Palmer, which was fun.  Then the second day was the year end picnic for the home school, so I took the kids to that with some help from my mother-in-law.  The kids had a good time, which was nice.  Then immediately after that the kids came down with some of the most horrible colds they've had in a long time and were sick for two weeks between the two of them.  Then, my husband skipped getting the actual cold part of the cold and went directly into getting a case of bronchitis that took him to the doctor.  He got antibiotics and things, but wasn't feeling any better this week.  In fact the cough keeps getting worse.  He went back to the doctor's yesterday and his lungs are clear by the chest X-rays and things, but his cough is awful.  I'm praying he doesn't end up in the hospital the way this is going :(.

Despite everything that has been happening around here, we did manage to get some stuff done. 

Please note before heading forward.  The following contains affiliate links.  If you order through these links, I will get a small commission from Amazon for shooting the sale their way.  This costs you nothing extra.  If you order through these links, thank you for supporting the blog :).

1.  Mother's Day weekend wasn't terrible weather-wise (we have been getting rain and unseasonably cold temps this year...this morning it was 44 degrees outside at 10am...not good) and the temps were staying above freezing at night, so I decided we should go and get plants for the garden (unfortunately they haven't gone up any, pretty much, since then, which stinks).  We ran into a problem I hadn't foreseen and that was that the horrible snow loads we had back in December...well a bunch of local green houses didn't make it.  Including our local Lowes.  So, seedlings were really tiny where we could find them, but I did find some, which was good and we were able to get some soil for the planters as well.  

So, let's break down what the garden is looking like so far (I took the pictures when we had a decent break up in the clouds...sadly the plants have done pretty much nothing since I took the picture last week, it has been that cold and nasty out).

The biggest change to the deck this year was a gift from my sister as a Mother's Day gift.  She got me a small wood bistro set I've had on my wish list for a long time on Amazon (this one).  My husband was even impressed with the quality when it came in.  I linked to it in case someone you know is looking for a decently inexpensive deck set as I looked a long time before I settled on that one.  I'm hoping to save up and get another one at some point so we have enough chairs for the entire family, but so far with the medical bills and things that are piling up, it is not high on my list of priorities.  But, even with the one bistro set, I have to say that is really pretties up the deck a lot :).  We've already sat out on the deck several times and the son really loves it, so that was definitely a nice bonus.

I did buy a few new planters this year as the make shift ones I had last year are literally breaking apart every time you touch them.  I felt bad as one woman who was standing next to me was in a mini-freak out about the cost of the planters and I had to explain to her what would raise the cost of plastics and she walked away swearing she was never going to throw anything away ever again.  Looking at the state of the used store and how little inventory they have...I'd say that she's not alone in her thinking.  

So, in the new planters I planted...

Lots of parsley.  After all this time I'm finally running out of parsley in my spice cabinet.  So, I want to grow enough to last me a long time after I dehydrate it.

In the next planter we have a few basil plants, which I planted to hopefully eat fresh more than dehydrating them as basil an herb I love, but traditionally I've been very good at killing without even trying.  So far the plants are hanging in there, so I'm happy about that.  I also have another parsley plant in this planter that came with a volunteer plant that I THINK might be dill?  I'm not sure at this point, so I'm waiting to see how the volunteer grows as I can always remove it later. Lastly I got a rosemary plant, which is tiny, but hanging in there.

I optimistically bought a few tomato plants as I love the Red Robin patio tomatoes, but so far they haven't died, but nor have they done anything since I planted them out in their planter homes.  They won't do much, in my experience, until it goes above 50 at night, which we haven't come close to hitting yet, so we'll see how it goes.  I am thinking about going and looking around in the storage van to see if I can find some heavy clear plastic that I could make some mini-greenhouses out of, but I haven't gotten a chance yet.  Here's hoping I can do something to help the tomatoes to produce as I love having fresh tomatoes in the summertime.  

Shot of tomato #2:

Right now onto the rest of the garden...

In the black planters next to the tomato we have a bunch of swiss chard growing.  These have grown a little bit so far, but not a huge amount.  In the green planter is my lettuce seedlings, which ARE growing okay all things considered so far.

On the table is my daughter's petunia basket, which is doing great.  I love how pretty it makes the deck look.  

And lastly, we have the cabbage graveyard.  This has never happened to me before in all of my years of gardening.  Normally I plant cabbages, do next to nothing with them and they grow and do great.  This year, I planted the cabbage seedlings I bought and they all died within the span of a week no matter what I did to try and save them (I even brought them all inside out of the cold for a few days and it did nothing for them :(.  I'm thinking that the seedlings came with a blight that just killed them, but I'm not sure.   I don't really have the time, energy or money to go and buy more seedlings, so as soon as the temps go up a bit I'm probably going to plant some seeds out of my already existing seed stores.

The way the weather is going, I doubt I'm going to have time to grow out the cabbage seeds, so I think I'm just going to grow out some arugula and some thyme as I couldn't get any thyme seedlings at the nurseries this year.  If they grow at least the soil doesn't go to waste and if they don't grow, I am not out anymore than I am right now, so I might as well gamble on it and see what happens.

Bright side, though is that the rhubarb is growing, so that's good!

So, yeah, that is where the garden stands at the moment.  Not terrible, but not super wonderful either.

2.  I got some good deals from Amazon, a couple of them like "holy crud I can't believe that worked" type of deals.  One was a set of white, organic cotton, queen sheets for my bed that after a super sale and a 20.00 off coupon ended up costing me a total of 1.99 for the ENTIRE SET!  I honestly ordered them and was convinced it was a rip off and wasn't going to work, but was super shocked when they came in, were really nice quality and was 100% legit!  I got these in case you want to add them to your cart and stock the price to see if it goes back down into the 20.00 range so you can then check for coupons and things.  Sorry I didn't share the deal on Facebook, but I honestly thought it was a scam and by the time I got the sheets it was all said and done.

I also got a decent deal on organic olive oil and was able to get a bottle of it for like 5.00 after a 40% off coupon and a subscribe and save discount.

3.  I thought I had gotten a really good deal on pecans through Amazon.  It was supposedly 5 lbs of pecans that were safe from peanut cross contamination, were farmed in the US and were on sale for 28.00.  I LOVE pecans, so I was really happy to spend the money on the pecans for future salads and baking projects.

Then the pecans came in.  Instead of 5 lbs of pecans, there were only 2.5 lbs.  The pecans were not even the pecans I had ordered, so they were not free from cross contamination.  I was not a happy camper especially when I saw that the pecans I HAD ordered were now up to 60.00 almost and Amazon wouldn't send me a replacement order.  After getting off the phone with Amazon and a refund, I looked at the nuts and tried to figure out what in the heck to do with them as I didn't want to throw them out as I love pecans, but I was kind of afraid to use them for the sake of Alvah's safety.  I remembered a conversation I had with someone earlier who had mentioned the process of soaking and then dehydrating nuts to up their digestibility, nutritional content and (best of all) since you rinsed and soaked the nuts beforehand you could remove the potential cross contamination of the peanuts.  So, I looked up how to do it and pulled out my dehydrator to get to work.  Unfortunately, my dehydrator, my cheapy Nesco that had served me well over the years, had finally kicked the bucket.  My husband is going to try and fix it, again, but in the meantime I ended up having to buy another dehydrator as I wanted to have one for dehydrating herbs if nothing else.  

I looked online and holy crap guys have you SEEN the price on dehydrators???  It is NUTS (no pun intended, but hey still funny)!  I started to figure out EXACTLY what would fit my needs.  I finally settled on this one as it had five trays, seemed like it would hold quite a bit for its size, had metal trays (which I figured was better than dehydrating on plastic, really) and had variable temperature controls.  It also had a flat top, so I could put some light weight plastic storage containers on it before I got around to putting them away when not in use.  And it was the right size to fit right next to the microwave.  The biggest sell point to it, though, was that after using credit card rewards and some Amazon gift cards on top of a really nice coupon (20.00 off) it ended up costing me 45.00 out of pocket, which was about what I was hoping to spend on a dehydrator (well, really, I was hoping to spend nothing and have my old one work, but we do what we can).  

So, I took the pecans and got to work.  I soaked them for about 24 hours in the fridge (I wasn't sure if you should leave them at room temperature for that long, so I soaked them on the counter for 10 and then popped them in the fridge over night).

The next morning I put them in the dehydrator and ended up dehydrating them at 130 F for 12 hours and they were nice and dry by that point.  The biggest thing I found with this dehydrator is how QUIET it is!  I barely noticed it was on at all the entire time it was running, which was a definite advantage over my old Nesco as that thing was so loud your ears would end up ringing after a while.

I put the dried and cooled nuts into some jars and put them in the freezer for storage and I've already used some in salads this summer, which is great and they really do come out tasty and easy to digest :).

4.  You might notice, as a side note, that lately I've been getting into healthier eating (well I guess more traditional ways of preparing food would be a better way to put that).  Part of that stems from the son and trying to get as much nutrition into his diet as possible (per usual) and I discovered the benefits of sourdough and fermented foods and such.  Another is that I got the results of my physical back and found that my bad cholesterol was high but everything else was great, which threw me and I tried to figure out what to do about that.  When I followed doctor's advice on how to lower my bad cholesterol, I ended up getting sick for pretty much all of February, which led me to researching things more and I discovered things about cholesterol, diet and things.  It really has led me to get us to eat better around here and I've found that doing things like sourdough baking, soaking and dehydrating nuts and such, that it not only has helped my husband's acid reflux a LOT, has helped me digestive condition as well and it has also helped my daughter's digestive problems too.  So, it has been totally worth trying these things.  So, yeah, I hope you don't mind coming along for the ride as I'm learning new skills around here as I'm learning more and more every day :).

A quick update on the pantry, speaking of food.  I am so thoroughly disgusted by Ball lids I could spit.  I have lost way too many jars to seal failures this year with the Ball lids.  Like one jar of sauerkraut a week bad.  I have been working really hard on using as much things out of the pantry as possible that have the Ball lids on them.  While trying to figure out a way around canning foods (as honestly I'm really ticked that so much work has gone down the drain this last winter), in the meantime I ran into the many health benefits of fresh fermenting foods as well and how long they would stay good (up to a year in the fridge in some cases), once fermented.  So, I decided to take a couple of heads of cabbage I had in the fridge, that I had gotten a really good personalized price on, and decided to make fresh sauerkraut (which was WAY easier than I thought it would be and I love the way you can control how tangy it gets by how long you ferment it for!).  This I'm using as kind of a topper on other dishes (like sauerkraut and sausages/brats) to up the nutritional content (oh and I made a really good sauerkraut coleslaw with it too...I'll look up the recipe and share it later :), while also using up the things I have sealed with Ball lids.  I had planned on my canned goods that I made last year lasting me two years, but anything with a ball lid I'm plain not trusting now, so yeah that is where that is at.  Anything I put up with Denali canning lids, by the way, have been just fine and the seals are very solid when I go to use the food contained within.  The same with the Golden Harvest lids my mom sent me from the Dollar Store, which I find ironic as Ball lids are expensive on top of everything.

5.  I harvested a small handful of chives from the front yard to use on baked potatoes one night.  So far they haven't really gotten big enough to get a decent harvest, but once they do I'm going to harvest them and freeze the chives for future use.  I did that last year and the baggy of chives lasted us through baked potatoes up until a few weeks ago!

6.  I mended a few holes in some comforters and some holes in some shirts around here.  

7.  I worked really hard on rearranging our den to make it easier for my husband to work on putting in the rest of the wood stove and at the same time making it easier for me to access the old exercise bike so I could get exercise in the morning as well.  It has been nice to use the bike without feeling like I was completely closed in by everything that used to be in the laundry room.  W are still working on getting a better washing machine installed in there as the old one is now overflowing at odd times and we end up with a big puddle of water in going down into the drain in the laundry room floor, so while I'm waiting on that getting done, I don't want to move anything back into the laundry room that would get in the way in the future, so the den is in a perpetual state of chaos anymore.  

8.  My daughter likes to take a ham sandwich to work for lunch every week, but if I buy a big thing of ham it goes bad before we can use it all (my husband and I don't eat much deli meat for the most part), so I took the package of ham we had just opened for the daughter's sandwich and separated it out into individual portions in sandwich bags.  I then put the sandwich bags into a freezer bag and every night before the daughter is set to work we just pull out one of the sandwich bags with the individual serving of ham it for her sandwich the next day and put it overnight in the fridge to defrost.  She loves it this way as she can pull out ham as she wants to for sandwiches, but doesn't get tired of eating them every day so the ham doesn't go bad and I love it because I don't have to worry about the lunch meat going bad when you aren't looking :).

9.  I ended up picking up organic sour cream instead of non-organic as it turned out it was on sale cheaper than the non-organic type.  Inflation is getting so bad that I have noticed that in a lot of cases organic foods are either cheaper, are the same price or not very much more money at all compared to non-organic options.  So, for those who always thought, "I can't afford to eat organic" be sure to keep your eyes out for deals as it seems like they are out there.  I am not one of those people who have an opinion of organic versus non organic foods, but if it is cheaper or the same price as the other, I have been opting to try the organic, I'll be the first to admit :).

10.  Due to the rising cost of living, I am definitely to the point of making most of everything we eat at home.  It is saving us money in one area of the budget so that we can spend that money in others (like on gas or other essentials).

And I'm going to call it good there as the son is getting grumpy.  I hope everyone had a good May and hopefully I can get more blogging (and other things) done in June.  Here's hoping!

Frugal Accomplishments for the Last Few Weeks

Man, it's been a long couple of weeks.  The masses of snow we have on the ground are finally, nearly, almost, gone, which is definitely a sight I've been waiting to see.  We've still had snow fall the last week or so, but it didn't stay (thank goodness!) and it's now a waiting game to see if Spring/Summer is finally getting a move on or not.  With the transitioning of the seasons comes Alvah not sleeping (I've heard this is pretty common among special needs people, but the only one I can say for sure is a definite "yes" on, is Alvah), which leads to him being grumpy (and me too, honestly).  Added to that is the fact that the public pool (where he goes for Special Olympics swimming) seems to be irritating his eczema this year, so the bottom of his feet are very itchy and that doesn't put him in a good mood either.

Anyway, between that and just being super busy with the end of the school year approaching and trying to get cleaning and household projects done...it is amazing I remember my own name *laugh*.

So, anyhoo, let's get onto some of the things I've been up to around here.

1.  One thing I have been doing is going through the pantry and cupboards to see if there are things I need to use up.  When making cookies, I realized my pure vanilla extract was running low, so I went and dug out the new 10 pack of vanilla beans I had bought for this occasion.  I strained out the old vanilla beans from my current bottle of vanilla to reuse them as well.  I added the lot to a swing top bottle I've had for years and topped it off with some of the ginormous bottle of rum we bought a few years ago.  The vanilla is now up on top of my cabinets in the kitchen steeping away.  it will hopefully be ready around Christmas when is about the time I would need it :).  Picture of said to-be vanilla seen up top there.

2.  I found that the potatoes we had bought at Wholy Living were sprouting on me, so I decided I needed to use them for something.  I had been wanting to stock up on diced hash brown potatoes to use in cooking and things (for instance I found a recipe that calls for a bag of the diced hash brown potatoes to make a really good loaded baked potato soup), but the price and availability on those types of potatoes were ridiculous, so I had kept putting off buying some.  So, I found this recipe and went to work.  The recipe turned out really good and I'm looking forward to using the potatoes in future recipes.  Seen above is when I pulled the sheet pans from the freezer and were transitioning them into freezer bags for long term storage.  I got two really full sheet pans full of diced potatoes out of the like 13 pounds of potatoes I had, so I was happy with the results :).

3.  I had some kefir starter that had been given to me and I had put off using for a while, but when I saw it was near its best by date, I decided to try and make some.  This can be chalked up into an "epic fail" for me.  I tried the first round to use some milk I had previously frozen because I needed to use it for something, but nothing, absolutely NOTHING happened after 48 hours after stirring in the culture.  The second time I tried using the yogurt function on my electric pressure canner.  After about 8, of the 12, hours the recipe I was following called for, I didn't have kefir, but I had really separated out (and not good tasting) curds and whey that was kind of like a grainy cottage cheese consistency.  Not good, let's put it that way.

After that I didn't want to waste any more fresh milk, so I just plain gave up.  I did want to try some kefir types of drinks, though, so I did get some probiotic drinkable yogurt when I went shopping.  I found I really do like it, but I'm just going to try and make my yogurt more liquidy next time I make it and see if I can get something similar that way instead of doing the kefir thing.  At least I can do yogurt *laugh*.

4.  Speaking of yogurt, I have some boxed milk I need to use up, so I took a gallon and made a batch of home made yogurt.  After straining it all, I got two quarts of Greek yogurt out of the gallon of boxed milk I was using.  I put one quart in the freezer and have been enjoying the other quart fresh for all of my yogurt needs :).  Next time I make it, I'm going to follow a reader's suggestion and try adding a bit of gelatin into the yogurt for a boost of nutrition. 

 5.  I took a cup of the hulless barley I got and cooked it in 3 1/2 cups of chicken broth on my stove for about two hours (I just turned it down to low after bringing it to a boil and let it simmer for the two hours with a lid on it), until the liquid was pretty much absorbed and the barley was done, but still a bit chewy.  I took about 1/4 of a cup of it to use in the rice pilaf I made to go with dinner that night and the rest I refrigerated and then put into a freezer bag to store for future use.  I'm going to add it when I want to add a little texture to a dish (along with some added nutrition) and especially when I make rice pilaf as I like the flavor it adds as well :).

6.  I went through things I wanted to use up and found a jar of honey we had gotten with our CSA box last year.  I also found four eggs in the fridge that I wanted to use up and decided to make some honey sweetened homemade ice cream.  I used this recipe and it turned out really good!  I am going to mess with the recipe next time and make it in different flavors, but I loved the fact that it was sweetened with honey as I do have quite a bit of honey in my food storage, so it's great to have another way to use some of it :).

7.  Some things I did that I don't have photos for include:

I mended a hole in one of my son's shirts.

8.  I went through and tightened up the drawer pulls on the kid's dressers when I had a free moment.  While there, I also started going through the son's clothes (and made the daughter go through hers) so we could start to put clothes that were too small into the donation pile.

9.  I deep cleaned my bathrooms.  I noticed that the shower curtain liners were getting grimy, but instead of purchasing new ones, I decided to gamble on seeing if I could wash them and get them clean that way.   I just put them on like regular laundry, along with the shower curtains (as those are cloth) and made sure to immediately hang up the curtain liners to dry in the showers as soon as they were out of the washing machine.  They came out nice and clean and saved me from having to spend money on new liners for a little while longer.

10.  I have been trying to budget out money to get stain to re-stain and re-seal our deck and front stairs as they are in rough shape.  I was checking my e-mail and found that our local paint place had stains and paint on sale for 30% off with an online coupon code.  I immediately ordered it as that was the best sale I'd seen on stain since I'd been looking toward doing this project!  It wasn't cheap as I bought a five gallon bucket (as we have to do the deck, the deck stairs and the front porch landing and stairs as well) and hope that is enough, but at least this will hopefully save the deck from getting completely destroyed from neglect.  Now I just need to wait for better weather and I can get to work on that!

11.  My step-mom sent me a box full of goodies she had collected for me (I swear it's like Christmas when I get these *laugh*).  I got a frog shaped turner for the kitchen (it actually seems decently sturdy, so I'm hoping it will work as a pancake flipper), a new tablecloth (which I'm hoping will fit my kitchen table) and a really awesome book on sewing called "Sewing Made Easy" from the 1950's :).  I just picked it up at the mail depot yesterday and I've already read about 1/4 of the way through the book *laugh*.  I'm hoping to learn a lot from it!

12.  I sat down and started to work on a plan to redo my master bedroom closet to work better (I'll give more information on that project as I get to it) and tried to come up with a potential budget in case I  need to buy some shelves to place in the closet for storage.  I'm going to see how far I can get with what I have around here first, though, before purchasing shelving or something, so we'll see how far I can get with what I already have.

And there you go folks.  Some of the stuff I've been up to the last little bit.  I'm hoping to get more done in the next couple of weeks, like hopefully getting some plant starts for the deck garden, but we'll see how the weather goes.  So far this is the first week we'll have temps going above freezing at night, but we'll still be in the 30's at night, so yeah...I might be putting plants in and out of the house for a good portion of the summer the way it is going so far.  We'll see how it goes.

Well, it is time for me to go and get stuff done around here, so I'm going to call that good.  Hope things are going well for you all, truly.  Hang in there.

Thrifty Thursday: Thrift Store Finds

It has been kind of a rough week around here.  Winter refuses to leave, although thank goodness it is getting warmer in the afternoons so the ridiculous amounts of snow we have are finally starting to melt.  Our 10 foot snow drift that was burying our back door is now down to about 4 feet, so I call that progress!  We are finally supposed to start staying above freezing at night here within the next few days, so if that holds for a week or so, I'm just going for it and I'm going to go buy some plants to put out on the deck.  I figure worse comes to worse, I'll go and buy some heavy plastic and build myself some mini greenhouses around my tomatoes and things to help them grow this summer.  I am really jiving for fresh produce fresh from the garden after how long this winter has felt.

I do have plans to get a frugal accomplishments post out this week, although it is probably going to be really late and hit on Saturday while my son is at Special Olympics with my husband, so I have the opportunity to think.  In the meantime, though, I thought I'd actually share some small finds I actually got on E-bay the last week.

Anyone who has been around for a bit knows that I love Tupperware, especially vintage Tupperware.  Unfortunately for me, others have caught on to how great the stuff is and it has been REALLY hard to find it at the used stores for the last year or so, which is par for the course with me.  It seems every time I get into collecting something it eventually becomes trendy and then I can't find it anymore.  I love Tupperware because it is darned near indestructible and super functional (well, okay, some pieces might not be, but I've really gotten into things that I buy have to be functional anymore or I feel like I'm wasting money, so Tupperware pieces I get I use...actually usually quite a bit).  I can safely say as an endorsement for the products that my Tupperware containers survived the seven point earthquake without even popping open.  They hit the floor and bounced.  The ONLY container that actually came open and spilled its contents was my container that was full of popcorn and that was because the microwave flew off of my sideboard and landed on it.  But, it survived and is still used today.  I can't say that about my Pyrex and Corelle pieces I had collected at the time.

This last week, I found out that Tupperware (the company) is more than likely going out of business.  They have hired professionals to try and turn the business around, but it is not looking good.  This made me so sad when I heard about it, as the company has been around since the 40s.  It also made me realize that the second hand market prices, if this happened, were doing nothing but going up, so if I wanted to fill the few gaps I had in pieces that I wanted, I had better figure it out now.

So, I went on E-bay to see what I could find for a couple more countertop containers as I needed some for flours and things I'm now using regularly (like I wanted to get one for unbleached all purpose flour since that is used all the time in my sourdough starter and things).  And, for the first time EVER I found a really great deal on not one, but two blue counter containers.  The blue color seems to be really rare and every time I saw listings for it on E-bay they were always way more money than I wanted, or could, spend on something like that.  This time, though, I found two containers that were 14.00 for BOTH containers and the shipping was cheap!  I am so thrilled with these as I've been wanting this color in my collection for years, and I mean years and they are now filled with flours and are being used every day pretty much, so I call it a definite win :).

The other small thing I managed to get was a lid for this brown container.  My mother-in-law gave me the container as part of a trade a long time ago, but while taking the lid off one day it split and broke on me (turns out, looking into the lid I needed to replace on it, that it was a replacement lid that broke on it to begin with...wonder what happened to the original lid as I'm sure my mother-in-law got it at a used store years ago).  I put the container aside and looked for a replacement lid ever since, but never could find one.  I just happened to be looking on E-bay and found an original container with the lid where the person was nice enough to list the lid part number in the listing, which was a first for me to find.  I went and searched for the lid part number, and while I couldn't find a clear or brown lid to go with the container (as it would have originally had on it), I DID find a golden yellow lid that would fit it and I called it good enough.  It was only 4.00 with free shipping (I know, expensive for a lid, but trust me that isn't bad for Tupperware), so I ordered it and can now finally use my brown container again (it is already full of flour as well and is on my counter top being used *laugh*).

I was even able to use credit card rewards to help pay for the items, which got my costs even lower :).

So, yeah, not screaming deals this week, but things I did need for my kitchen to protect important things from bugs and mice, so I'm definitely not complaining.  And the fact that the blue containers happened to be a color I had been looking for was a major bonus for me :).

Oh in a side note ,thank you to those who have chimed in on the hood paint and making sure it was high temperature rated.  My husband has thought about tractor paint and "other alternatives" but hasn't settled on one yet, but we will definitely make sure the paint is rated for high temperatures.  Thank you for the advice!

Also, I can't remember who asked this question (sorry) but someone asked if I had ever found a recipe for Red Robin seasoning that worked well enough for Alvah.  No, no I haven't.  I looked at the ingredients and the seasoning has malt extract powder, so I'm thinking that adds a depth of flavor I just plain can't replicate.  I'm going to keep trying, though.

Enjoy!

March Wholy Living Haul

"Wholy Living?"  you may ask, "What the Heck is that?"

Well, if you are in Alaska, this might interest you :).

Wholy Living is a whole foods dealer in Palmer, Alaska.  I honestly didn't have a clue this place really existed until recently.

It all started when I was watching Three Rivers Homstead on YouTube.  She was grinding wheat to use in baking.  No biggie, I thought, I do that.  BUT instead of going to the hand sifting step that I always had to go through to make the flour lighter and fluffier (and it makes a huge mess), she just popped the flour into a contraption that was attached to the top of her Bosch, ran it and the flour came out super light and fluffy.  Without tons of hand sifting needed, which meant a lot less hand aches.  Without all of the mess!  

The device she was using was a sifter that someone had developed for the Bosch, she explained, and she loved it.  I looked over at my Nutrimill Artiste mixer (I bought it after the earthquake as my Viking mixer wasn't working properly, but once my husband fixed the Viking the NutriMill became my back up mixer :), went online and found out that the device would indeed attach to the Artiste mixer.  I called my husband and told him straight that if I could find it, I was taking the money out of savings and buying it as the sifter would quickly pay for itself just in labor hours saved.  Now, mind you, I do not normally look at an item brand new and say, "We are getting this".  I can recall twice that has happened in my life.  One was when I test drove our Equinox (now that was partly my husband's fault as he found the car *laugh*)  and the other was this sifter.

The hard part, for me, was finding somewhere to get one.  I found a few outfits online, but their shipping on a 90.00 item was astronomical to Alaska, so I decided to call around, text my mother-in-law (who knows the Bosch way better than I do as she's had one for years), etc.  My mother-in-law and Allen and Peterson (our local Kitchen appliance and kitchenware outfit), both came out with Wholy Living as my best bet for finding the attachment.  And she did, indeed have it in stock!  I was thrilled.

I then started going through her site and realizing that there was things in her store that I could really use, so I started to compile a list of things to get.  I pooled all of my money for March for bulk foods/pantry restock, and took the 90.00 out of savings to pay for the sifter on top of it.  I managed to kidnap/convince my mother-in-law to help me find the place and we took off up Clark-Wolverine Road to go and get a sifter.

When we got there, I had a list, which I think was the best way to do things as a bulk food store like that, without prices listed in the place...I could have easily gotten out of there spending wayyyyyy more than I planned on.  I had prices written down from the site and had everything added up on top of it.  The only thing I ended up buying that wasn't on my list was she had a bunch of local potatoes for .99 lb and my mother-in-law really wanted to get some, so I ended up with more potatoes when she insisted on splitting the bag with me *laugh*.  Margaret (the owner of Wholy Living) also didn't have the size of Italian seasoning I wanted (she only had 4 oz bags, and only two at that, so instead of a pound of seasoning I ended up with 1/2 lb) so she took off 5.00 from the total to compensate. 

Funny enough, since she runs a co-op type of operation, she carries Azure Standard stuff (I never thought I'd be able to get those types of items), which was awesome as I really wanted to try out some of their products :).  

In total, I spent 266.00 total, minus the sifter attachment the total up top cost me 176.00, which wasn't bad for what I got.  The sifter was 90.00 and it is TOTALLY worth getting if you grind your own grain and have a Bosch or NutriMill Artiste mixer.  I know it is a convenience item, but when you get into doing as much baking as I do anymore, this thing is just wonderful to have.

So, let's break down what I got.

1. 25 lbs, 9 grain cereal.  

My husband and I have been eating the Bob's Red Mill 5 grain hot cereal for breakfast a lot, but the only place I could get it was Amazon and it was getting really spendy to buy as it came in one pound packages and cost like 25.00 for a box of four.  When I saw that I could get 25 lbs of NINE grain cereal for like 33.00, I was thrilled!  It was a MUCH better deal than what I was buying.  

I then took 1 lb out of the bag and put it into my cereal container to eat for breakfasts (it is also really good added to bread to make a nice whole grain bread).   

Then, I separated out the rest into 1 lb increments in freezer bags and put them in the freezer to pull out as needed.  I am thinking this will easily last us a year.

  2.  25 lbs of Alaska grown hulless barley (the white bag above).

I was really happy to see this when I saw it as I have been wanting to get some barley from Alaska flour company, but to ship a bag to myself would have cost significantly more than the amount she was charging (I think it was like 30.00 or something close to that).

This stuff takes a while to cook, but if you cook it in some chicken broth and get it tender, it is really good.  And if you add it to rice pilaf or other dishes it lends a wonderful texture and flavor!  I haven't even ground some into flour yet (the majority of it went into a five gallon bucket with some oxy absorbers and got sealed up tight for future use), but am looking forward to grinding some into flour for bread :).

3.  5 lbs of allergy free mini chocolate chips.

This was for Alvah.  He loves the Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips, but the bags not only get smaller (so it seems anyway), but they are terribly expensive, so I got these to use for bribes/snacks for him.

4.  1 lb beef gelatin. 

I got this to start making more home made jello and get in some added nutrition into our diets.  I still haven't used it yet (waiting for closer to summer), but I really am looking forward to making it with some of my home canned raspberry juice.  Yum!!!

5.  Almond Extract, 8 oz.

I have been needing almond extract, but haven't had much luck finding it at the store, so I got it here.  It is a big bottle and will last me for quite a while, I think.

6.  Italian Seasoning, 4 oz packages, two total.

I was hoping to get the 1 lb package, but she only had two four oz packages left, so I went with those.  I needed Italian seasoning (I use it all the time), so it was great being able to pick it up while I was there.

7.  Montreal Steak Seasoning, 1 lb.

This was another "I need that" as I was completely out, so I decided to give the Azure Market brand a try instead of going with my usual McCormick.  I have to say it is really good and I'm enjoying it :).

8.  SAF Instant Yeast, 1 lb.

I rarely pass up an opportunity to pick up another block of yeast when I get a chance, so I definitely took advantage and grabbed a pound there.  For 8.00 it was cheaper than what I was finding on Amazon for yeast prices as well.

9.  And, of course, the star of the show...

The sifter!!!  Seen here up top of my NutriMill in all of it's sifting glory!

10.  And, I almost forgot the potatoes...

The potatoes are nice potatoes and a lot of them are really large.  I can't remember if we got Yukon gold or German Butterball, but either way the potatoes are nice potatoes.  I split my mother-in-laws half into a box and kept my half in the burlap sack.  I didn't really NEED potatoes and the potato drawer in my fridge was full up, so I ended up having to use them up quickly as they started to sprout and some were getting green (I'll show what I did with them in another post :).

And there you go folks.  My bulk shopping I did in March.  I know it doesn't do a lot of people any good as they don't have Wholy Living to shop at, but I do encourage you to check in your local area to see what bulk foods outfits are available to you as with current inflation and things going the way they are, honestly buying in bulk might be a good option for a lot of us.  I had no idea Wholy Living existed until others told me about it, so who knows what is hiding in your local area as well.

Enjoy!

Frugal Accomplishments For the Last Two Weeks

Since I didn't get to do a "Frugal Friday" post the last few weeks, I decided that I would compile the list together and share some things that I've done the last couple of weeks to save money :).

1.  I took a loaf of bread that wasn't getting eaten fast enough, sliced it and let it stale up a little bit more and turned the entire thing into a bunch of French Toast.  My husband actually ate a ton of it for breakfasts last week and I ate the last two pieces for breakfast one morning.  I was impressed we were able to go through so much of it, as my original plan was to freeze it *laugh*.

2.  Speaking of freezing things, my husband was running low on breakfast bowls in the freezer.  I took a bag of off brand French fries we'd gotten last year when frozen French fries were in short supply.  This particular brand my son didn't like (it was right before we got all of the free French fries that lasted us nearly a year!  I've just started having to buy the son fries again the last few months and WOW have they gone up in price!!!) and decided I needed to do something with them.  So, I took them and just used the fries as hash browns in Lynn's Kitchen Adventures Breakfast Bowl Recipe.  It made a huge bowl of breakfast bowl mix that I was able to split into a bunch of bags and put into the freezer.  It passed the husband quality control test, so I'm calling it a win *laugh*.

3.  I got some pretty good deals for Easter this year.  I already had a spiral sliced ham I got cheap (like .99 lb cheap) after New Years, but I completely spaced when Easter was this year, so forgot to get eggs during our normal "big shopping trip" week (since my husband gets paid every two weeks, I do one big shopping trip per pay period and then the next week just aim to buy milk and whatever essentials we might run low on, to conserve money).  So, I actually checked the store ad for the week.  I then saw they had a 1.00/1 coupon for eggs and also had asparagus on sale for 1.49 lb (it had a limit on it, though) and pork roasts and chops were on sale for 1.49 lb as well.  I needed pork roasts as I was completely out in the freezer and I can always use another package of pork chops, so I put those in my pick up order.  I also got some blocks of cheese as they were on sale decently cheap with a coupon, got my eggs (yay!) and I got a thing of Ready Whip to eat with our strawberry short cake for Easter (it was on sale for 3.00 and was the only one they had in stock, but I still felt ripped off when we got it as shrinkflation has hit that stuff hard.  The bottle is SO much smaller now).  I ended up spending around 60.00 for everything, which I was okay with to stock up on pork.  

We had the asparagus with Easter dinner roasted with some bacon pieces I had left over from breakfast (it was so yummy!) and they were thin enough I didn't need to take a peeler to hard parts or anything.  It all got eaten in no time flat.

4.  In the same "shopping" vein, one of the "essentials" on my list was some more Tilamook cheddar block cheese as Alvah will only eat that type of cheese (and since it is one of the whole foods he'll eat, you better believe I keep it in the house).  I was going to buy it at Carrs, but the price on the cheese had gone up crazy, so I stopped off at Three Bears to pick up some blocks of cheese to grate myself.  I got Tilamook there, but while looking at the other cheeses, I was astounded to see a big blocks of Provolone in with the other block cheese.  What blew my mind was that for a nearly six pound loaf of cheese (they were like 5.83 lbs each), supposedly the price on them was only 9.57 each!  I was convinced it was a mistake on the shelf tag and it was the price per lb or I was reading the unit of measure to the price wrong.  I took one cautiously with me and had the cashier do a quick price scan on it before I bought it and was astounded to see that the entire loaf was, indeed, only 9.57!!!  That worked out to be about 1.64 per lb of cheese!  I only took one to save whatever I could for others.  I sliced some and grated some, put it into freezer bags and stuck it into the freezer for the most part.  I did keep some out for sandwiches, but the rest I froze and will use later for all kinds of things.  I am SO thrilled with that purchase/deal as it is hard to find good deals on cheese :).

5.  We dyed eggs with food coloring again this year.  They came out prettier than the picture shows.  This year we only died 8 eggs to save on egg costs, but it was still fun and everyone enjoyed themselves :).  I found that the McCormick food coloring this time around actually had egg dye amounts right on the box to make different colors, so I stuck with those for the most part (I'm not very observant so they could have been there for years and I might not have noticed, unfortunately).  I turned the eggs into egg salad and my husband and I really enjoyed it.

6.  I got some Spring cleaning done.  I got up on top of my cabinets with a putty knife and cleaners in hand and got all of the old grease removed and the cabinets cleaned all nice and tidy.  I took down my pudding molds and cleaned them really well and put them back up, etc.  While cleaning my hood and deep cleaning it, I managed to strip the paint off of the hood without even trying (my husband thinks that it is just so old that the grease from cooking day to day over the past 10+ years we've lived here has just worked its way into the paint and made it peel off)...I mean it just wiped off with the cleaner.  

My husband and I finally realized that the hood is definitely a vent-less style hood by searching the model number and I realized that the filter that was in it previously was the wrong type (it was a reusable filter, but not for that type of hood) and I'd been buying the wrong type of replacement filters all this time because I'd just been buying what the previous owners had in the hood, thinking it was the right type!  So, I ordered the proper type of filter, ordered a new shield for the light bulb in the hood (the old one was so old the plastic was brittle and breaking off pieces whenever you'd so much as touch it) and got everything but the horrible looking paint looking a lot better.  It works as well as a vent-less hood can work now, so I am calling it a win and hopefully we can get it repainted soon.

7.  I used up some onions that were starting to sprout and made Chicken Lyonnaise for dinner one night (great way to use up onions by the way!).

8.  I sat down and planned out the kid's curriculums for next school year and I went and planned out what I needed to buy for the son for next school year (the daughter's stuff can be ordered directly through the homeschool and they'll take it out of our allotment so I don't have to worry about paying everything out of pocket and getting reimbursed for it).  I then went and figured out what I would need to order for the son and how much it would cost me out of pocket, so I can hopefully start budgeting to pay for it all before July 1st rolls around (when you can start ordering for next school year).

And I'm going to call it good there as I have a ton of housework to get caught up on.  Enjoy!