Our piece of the Prairie

Tightening the budget belt has been on my mind lately. With the cost of gas continuing to go up as well as the cost of food and other items it is requiring an extra degree of thought to how the money is spent. One of the things I have been doing is instituting a “No Leftovers” policy. In the past if I had a few leftovers from a dinner I would not think to much of it. But now I have started to scale down how much food I make (especially with Leanne gone and Emily not always home for all meals) and make sure the kids eat what leftovers we have for lunch the next day… or I even serve them for dinner the next night if there are enough. I did this yesterday. I made Yummy Pinto Beans the day before and used 4 cups of dry beans (and a pound of hamburger added to the recipe) so it made a large pot of beans for us. We had enough for dinner last night too. I also will examine all leftovers that aren’t enough to serve a second time and see what new creation I can make from. Stir fry from leftover rice, chili over baked potatoes, goulash from a small amount of leftover spaghetti sauce, fried potato patties from leftover mashed potatoes, adding leftover pot roast to noodles or potatoes and adding a cream sauce to make a casserole. It is amazing how much I can save by thinking creatively with leftovers! I am also watching what I buy so it does not go to waste.. like too many tomatoes or fruit or whatever it may be. I am keeping my meals simple to make with a minimum amount of ingredients. So far my efforts have been noticeable on the budget! And I am still able to buy various organic products and still save.

The next area we looked at was how many cars we have on insurance policies that we don’t drive. My husband has a truck he only drives occasionally and we have a full size 12-passenger van we now only drive occasionally due to that $125 price tag at the gas pump fill up. So we talked with our insurance man and he said it was fine to put the cars on a comprehensive policy only as long as we are not driving them. IF we would want to drive them we just call the insurance company up and let them know we need the vehicle for the day and they adjust the policy for that day. The cost has been about $10 every 6 months for each vehicle.. which has been a huge savings. I have heard that not every insurance company will do this but I do know State Farm is one that will.

Driving with multiple purposes is also one way we are saving money. We live quite a ways from town so combining errands and shopping trips and not going into town more often than necessary is helping. Although things seem to come up some weeks that make this hard to do. So if I need to grocery shop I will also use that trip to go to the bank, the post office, combine the trip with appointments and so on. If Emily needs to go to the local college to take a CLEP test then afterwards we will grocery shop and I try and buy my gas at the lest expensive gas stations in the city when I am out rather than the more spendy ones that are closer to home.

In the home I am working harder at reusing as many things as possible like plastic zip bags or my bread bags. Also when I think I need something I stop and ask myself if there is something I already have that would work just as well. As an example a few weeks ago I made up a batch of homemade disinfectant cleaner and used some paper towels that my husband had sitting in the shop (he got them from cleaning out his dad’s house as normally I don’t buy paper towels). I needed a container to put them in but did not have one big enough to work. So instead I used a gallon size zip lock bag and have been reusing the bag since then. It works fine.

Leanne sent us another letter.. I think she is feeling a bit homesick and that makes my mama heart sad for her. But I know this will be a wonderful experience when she looks back. She is a real homebody and I figured before she left she would have some difficult adjustments to make. So we continue to keep her in our prayers daily. We all are missing her so much. She has 6 weeks left to go and this week her team leaves for Egypt. I hope to have more pics from the Teen Missions website to post soon.

Chicks Moved Out

The chicks are very happy in their new home. Three of them are 7 weeks old and the other two are 5 weeks old. I set them up a spot in the storage side of the chicken coop, separate from the adults. They have about 20 square feet in there. I hooked up a light for them with a 60 watt bulb - mostly for light, but the heat will help at night when it gets cooler. The temperature outside today was about 64 degrees, so they didn't really need the extra heat during the day. That side of the coop only gets light through the little window in the door, so the extra light will be good.

Making progress on the fence for the chickens. Yesterday I dug two holes and today I dug 1 1/2 holes. That leaves just 4 1/2 holes left. I bought all the lumber for the fence and began staining it today too. I will feel good when the fence is finished - see all those big rocks I've been digging out?!

Canning This Week

We bought 8 sockeye this week and I picked them up Thursday. I filleted them that night and stuck them in the fridge. Total filet weight was 44 pounds - average of 5.5 pounds per fish. Yesterday, I canned up 14 pints (used just a bit more than 3 fish), vacuum sealed the other filets and froze them. Aren't they pretty?!? :o)

Milk Cans and Coconut Oil

First-I have two old milk cans and I would like to use them somehow. I know I could paint them and then????? They work good as decor, but is there anything more practical I could do with them?

Second-I only use olive oil and coconut oil when I cook and bake. Well, I usually get my coconut oil from Wal-Mart and the price has jumped from $4.25 to $6. 98. Has this happened all over? Does anyone know of a place where I could order it for less and maybe get my wheat berries and other commodities? We don't have a food buying co-op around here and I'd have to put in a $400 order and go all the way to Duluth for pick up if I used the only one I've found.

Well that's it. I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. We have a nice, hot day with thundershowers promised tonight. We're just wrapping up a rummage sale. It went pretty well. It would have been nice to get rid of everything, but anything at all is better than nothing.

Who, Me?

My prayers this morning included this, "God, please don't let me leave any lasting scars with my attitude today."

So far so good, they all seem to be avoiding me, so that might be the reason no one has cryed yet. They've learned well.

The 4th of July in Kansas

Kombucha...the gift that keeps giving!

If you've never heard of Kombucha...let me just fill you in! Here is a link to some basic info on kombucha, but bottom line, there are sooo many health benefits. I drink kombucha tea (or k-tea) for several reasons....

to name a few. It's so simple to make, inexpensive and it tastes good (kind of like sparkling cider) All you need is plain old black tea and white sugar! Now we don't usually use white sugar in our home, but the kombucha seems to like it best so I do buy it just for this.

Though it's often referred to as a mushroom, kombucha is actually grown with something called a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) and with each brew, a new scoby is "born". You can keep these babies or give them away to friends and family (which I've been doing a lot lately!) Then each of those babies will produce new scoby's that can be passed on! So it really is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only giving continual health benefits, but giving new cultures to be passed on. How cool is that!

The next time I make it (Tuesday) I'll try to take pictures of the process to share with all of you.

Today... Happy 4th!

I took the girls to the parade. They decided at the last minute to help with the church's float, so I took them. It's about 30-35 miles from our house, so we got up early and got some chores done then left. The Parade theme this year was REMEMBER WHEN... and our church's float was small (just a pick-up truck with several walkers walking by it). They had signs that said "Wise Men still seek Him" and 3 wise men in the back of the truck with a wooden camel. They got lots of cheers, I guess, through out the parade, so they knew people appreciated the thought. My kids handed out flyers with the rest of the walkers... they has small children's booklets and magazines to hand out and a few adult flyers as well. I just watched from a friend's house which is the very corner the parade starts and while we saw all the floats, many weren't in sync until after the first block.

After the parade, I quickly ran into town with a friend's keys to her store and picked up as many empty boxes as I could fill in our mini van for the BIG FIRE CLEAN UP! I so appreciated the boxes, that means I can start right away (and we did this afternoon), just removing dirty items from the immediate house and have them out of the way for the cleaners. I packed up my cookbooks and then boxed up all the food they told me to throw and I also inventoried it all. My girls packed a few boxes of items they did not want to have messed with when they are away at camp.

We are to record our time cleaning and boxing items and we can work off our deductible. The insurance adjuster told us to keep track of times. He does not have the exact rate we will be paid at, but it will be between $8-10. I figured if we got the rate of $8, we need to work off 132.5 hours. So far, we've logged 16.25 hours. Not much, but it's hard to do much when they say you can't clean until the cleaners come. But some things like laundry and boxing up items we can do (now that we have approval). I have four pages of inventoried items from my spice cupboards. The adjuster said I'd likely have to take a price shop and get some prices on the items and then figure the cost... by how much was left in the packages. Full, half, 1/4, etc. I am really hoping that turning in sheet with prices will be adequate. Rebuying everything right now seems just over my head. First, there is no where to put it, and second, I just want the house clean before I think about restocking the cupboards. I will say however that fried potates with no seasonings aren't as grand as one might think... LOL. I really should buy a little salt and some garlic or a couple seasonings... but then again... maybe I just shouldn't fry anything!!! That's bad for my health anyways!

I am feeling a bit better today. I was thinking about how overwhelming this process is really turning out to be. And yet... I recall that recently I was stunned by the doctor's diagnosis of depression. As I was thinking of the garden... if you are gone 1 week, it takes nearly 3 weeks to catch up with weeding... things just don't stop growing! As I looked at the house and noted my past couple years worth of keeping house (little was done when I was dealing with my daughters illnesses, our hard sheep year, and my depression)... I realized I kept the family areas clean... as clean as say... there wasn't food stuck to the furniture, but dusting was done every couple of months rather than once a week... I had lots to catch up on... and if it worked out like the garden... even though I am getting my energy back, trying to keep up and catch up at the same time was still going to be a lengthy process. Now I am offered help. I was at first mortified that they are cleaning EVERY little piece of my home, but I am beginning to be grateful for this opportunity... I mean how often does one get a full cleaning and professional cleaning help when one does spring cleaning? I simply have to humble myself and just admit that I need help to get back on my feet... and Wow, God already provided that help! Even before I asked. How great is that? God is sooooo good to me sometimes that I know I hardly deserve any of this (I don't deserve any of it!), but oh how grateful I am to be His child!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

Does anybody make organic strawberry rhubarb jam? If so could I please have a recipe.. I might have a buyer for my jam but they want it all organic! I would love to have the outlet for this sale....

Jello...

Could you please tell me if jello is organic??? How would I find the answer to that question??? Thanks

Our piece of the Prairie

Budget Talk and More…

Chicks Moved Out

Canning This Week

Milk Cans and Coconut Oil

Who, Me?

The 4th of July in Kansas

Kombucha...the gift that keeps giving!

Today... Happy 4th!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

Jello...

About Me

Links

Categories

Recent Entries

Friends