6 Frugal Prices (We're working towards it, anyway!)

I Just Got Here...

I'm just getting started here, but so far this looks like my kind of place!

I'm going to want to check into the Homesteading library.  I'm hoping I'll find it a helpful resource.    While I was looking around at resources today, I found a recipe for home made laundry soap at http//www.thefamilyhomestead.com/laundrysoap.htm/  Its a liquid laundry soap that looks to be cheaper than what I buy to use now, so I want to try it out.

   Hopefully, my family will help me record what we're doing at our mini-homestead and pick up ideas on what more we can be doing.  I guess I'm here looking for encouragement.  I've been feeling sort of out of place lately and noticing the differences between our lifestyle and others around us. I'm a sahm.  My husband is a mechanic, who runs a garage with another mechanic/partner.  I try to do my part at home so that we can live well on one lower that average income.  I think the gap between our income and those around us must be increasing,  or maybe its having teen-agers in the house...

We have always home-schooled our 4 kids(lambs )  At our church we're the only home-schoolers, and one of the few single income families...  the only one with kids still in the home and a sahm.  We recently  participated in small-group  fellowship where the main thing that stood out to our family is how little we have in common with everyone else, other than our faith.  We're also active in Bible Study groups but I feel sort of the same way there.  We're used to expecting some pressure to change our lifestyle from family but lately I feel like everywhere I go people would prefer that we try to change to fit in better.  I didn't mean to start out sounding so whiney,  Its just that what I've really felt lately is like we're odd with the lifestyle we're leading now and yet I think my husband and I are more inclined toward becoming 'more odd',  finding ways to continue on the path we're started on, doing our own thing, at home with what we've got to work with.  I've always felt that God has called us to depend on Him and to use what He has given us in as creative a way as we are able.  With a bigger income, we could be bigger consumers, but would it make us better people?  I think I came to this homesteading site because I'm hoping to regain some perspective.  I may be wrong about this but I think the homesteading movement has to do with a return to living creatively.  God created us to be able to do so much more than we have opportunities for when we live the modern, affluent lifestyle I see all around me (living in the middle of the USA).  

  Today we are seeing the snow melt.  Yesterday, we were snowed in.  Besides playing in the snow, the kids have taught me to play Mancala.  Yesterday, I baked - zucchini bread, corn bread...   

here's the zucchini bread recipe

2 c sugar

1 c oil

2 c zuchinni, unpeeled, grated     (I pulled a bag out of the freezer & thawed it)

3 eggs

3 c flour

1 t salt

1 t baking powder

3 t cinnamon

2 t vanilla

1/2 c nuts

   Mix sugar and oil with zucchini.  Add eggs then flour, salt, bakingpowder, cinn., vanilla and nuts.  Mix well.  Pour into 2 well-greased loaf pans.

recipe from, Western Illinois Threshers 25th Anniversary 1992 recipe Mrs. Steve Bolton.

Its time for me to go do some more cooking, maybe check the sheets drying on the clothesline, play a little, pray, et cetera, et cetera.... smiles, Belinda (aka frugal mama to the prices)    

Welcome.

06:24, 2006-Mar-22 .. Posted by Toddlerseverywhere

I know exactly how you feel. My husband and I went through the same thing. In the end it strengthened our resolve because we had to decide, could we really go back on what God had shown us, no we had to go foward and trust in Him.
This is a great place and I'm sure it will give you some encouragement.
Blessings,
Tracy

Hello!

08:45, 2006-Mar-22 .. Posted by kayinpa

and Welcome!

Be encouraged...

04:03, 2006-Mar-23 .. Posted by marthaskitchen

I loved what you wrote. All my 'Christian friends' think that we are going fruity (lol!) maybe we are. By the end of the year I'm finishing my part-time job and I will be home schooling my little angels. Two years ago I would of never thought to do this mainly because I was never told that there is a 'better way'. (In my opinion). I am looking into ways of becoming frugal now and how to save money. I'm looking forward to spending more time with my children as they are only young once and I'm really looking forward to creating a haven for our family. I look forward to reading more of your entries.

Welcome

06:08, 2006-Mar-23 .. Posted by Joy

I hope you enjoy blogging here. The scripture keeps coming to mind about straight is the road and narrow is the way and few there be that find it. I hope that encourages you.
Have a great day.

...No, it wouldn't make you better people...

03:29, 2006-May-9 .. Posted by ZookeeperCat

It sounds like we have a lot in common. I'm also one of very few sahm's in my church (all the others are basically on mat leave with their babies, except for a farm wife and our pastor's wife), and we're the only hs'ers there.

For many years, we got along on the commitment for me to stay home and my hubby, aka "Breakneck," to work at whatever he could. He's been a machinist-in-training and a farm labourer, and four years ago got on - hugely ironic - at the chemical fertilizer plant. Our income may have increased, but I find it only means increased headaches. I didn't have the temptation to become more of a consumer before, because to choose that would have been to choose bankruptcy. And we're not better people for our current economics, I don't think. It's very easy to say "I am full and have enough" while slipping into blindness and wretchedness, spiritually.

We hope to return full-time to the on-farm life here on our acreage, keeping bees and doing an organic market garden. The biggest thing our "better" life has done is make it harder to find time for God. For that reason, we're both looking to make a deliberate choice of letting go the rat race in favour of more time for family and the Lord.

Cat, Lazy Creek Zookeeper

Welcome!

11:36, 2006-Jun-5 .. Posted by lvg4him

I look forward to reading more! Please turn on your RSS feed link so that I (and others) can be notified when you post something new to your blog. If you need help figuring out how, just let me know! BLESSINGS!!