I generally avoid women’s events as I find them overall way too frilly.  The men go out for a guys’ night (that may or may not include video games, pool, or shooting balls of paint at each other), and the women stay home and drink tea.  What?  I don’t necessarily want to do all the things the guys do (video games: yes; paintball — no; pool — maybe), but seriously?  This is the result of the feminist movement: a women’s brunch?

And yet, yesterday I rolled out of bed after a short night’s sleep and drove down to the Harbor to go with my mom to the annual Christmas women’s brunch that my home church hosts.  I went because I wanted to see my mom and because I could.  It is one of the perks of living close to the Harbor.  I also went because I enjoy spending time with other women and value the understanding, the community, the strength that is present when women gather together.  It was a delightful experience, despite spilling coffee on my pants, and overall I left feeling relaxed and satisfied that I am a woman.  In the past few years, I have become increasingly intrigued by feminine culture, by how women carry with strength and grace the bombardment of expectations that often seem to define what it means to be a woman.  Events like yesterday’s brunch leave me convinced that womanhood is still underestimated.  It’s a topic larger than the post, yet one I hope to write more about.

*****

After the brunch, my mom and I went to my high school for their annual Christmas bazaar, and we wandered around looking at stuff I generally could not afford.  Later that evening, we worked on our menu plans for the next week, the next month, really as many meals as we could brainstorm to last as long a time as possible.  Menu planning and grocery shopping is an ever-changing process in the Noblin home.  I am constantly tweaking how we do things around here, mostly because our life and whatever strategy I am currently using seems to fall short especially in light of my job and Mike’s shifting schedule.  Some things I know are important:

1. I have found a meal plan to be an absolute must for us otherwise we are tempted to go out, and it is important that meals be assigned to specific days, not just vaguely floating out there as “something I will do eventually.”  Specificity eliminates the “what am I making for dinner tonight” conundrum.  I was using our Wallace and Grommit calendar in the kitchen for meal planning, though I have switched to Google calendar at this point because I can drag meals around without crossing them out.
2. Last year, I did meal plans weekly.  I have since shifted to doing it two weeks at a time and am finding it takes just as much time (but not more), so I am trying to do a monthly meal plan and then go grocery shopping twice a month for those meals.
3. Trying to do meal plans, grocery lists, and shopping in one afternoon is killer and should absolutely be avoided if at all possible.  It sucks the life from me.

I am still working through how much to do on a rotation, which nights to cook with a husband who has night class and works the evening shifts, how much to ahead of time with limited freezer and refrigerator space, getting the dishes done before the next meal, not going crazy and letting things be.   I would love to hear what you do, faithful reader.  How do you do your menu plans and grocery shopping?  What’s worked and what hasn’t?

Contributed By Steve Goldberg  

I received a lovely email message last week complimenting our work at Upside to the Downturn. The message was from Tim McSorley, who coordinates a Canadian National Film Board program called GDP: Measuring the Human Side of the Canadian Economic Crisis   

He thought our subscribers might be particularly interested in a short, four minute film called Sisterhood is Frugal.   I viewed it, thought it was great, and wanted to share it with you.   

Sisterhood is Frugal is part of a web documentary series entitled The Savers Club and follows Dani, a debt-ridden Calgary radio deejay who admits she’s an “emotional spender”.   She realizes she is not alone. Pushed by the economic downturn, she resolves to get smarter about her personal finances and forms a self-help group for women who spend too much.   

Emotional spending is an issue for many people.  In an article entitled  Get Emotional Spending Under Control¹, Amy Fontinelle states that:  

 “Advertisers spend billions of dollars annually convincing us that products can make us feel successful, prevent us from being bored, help us attract the opposite sex, and a myriad of other things. When ads are carefully designed to manipulate our spending habits, it’s no wonder so many people have become emotional spenders.” 

 Click here to watch Dani’s brief video, as well as continue with the rest of this story.  

 Questions for Consideration:  

1. What, if anything, have you learned about yourself and your spending habits over the last 12 months of this recession?
2. Do you consider yourself to be an emotional spender? That is, someone whose wallet tends to be run by their emotions, spending not because they need something or even because they really want it, but because they have stress or problems in other areas of their lives and want to feel better through “retail therapy”.
3. Have you recently tried to change this type of spending? If so, what’s been helpful to you?
4. What advice, from your own experience, do you have for other emotional spenders?

¹Get Emotional Spending Under Control, by Amy Fontinelle, offers a number of useful tips and techniques for reducing unwanted expenditures.  http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/08/emotional-spending.asp   

A note about the GDP archives: Over the next year, some 250 short films and photo essays will be added to the site. You can join the conversation by visiting http://gdp.nfb.ca and uploading your own videos or images, plus you can provide comments on the many themes and stories on the site. The goal is to develop a broad exchange and dialogue as people live out challenges and triumphs during the current economic crisis.  

Looking for inspiration in your quest to de-commercialize the holiday season? Then look no further than Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli’s classic book, UnplugThe Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into The Season.

Here’s a short excerpt from the book:

The one concern that united virtually all the people we’ve talked to is a yearning for a simpler, less commercial, more soul-satisfying celebration. There is a universal wish to end the year with a festival of renewal that rekindles our faith, brings us closer to the people we care about, and brings lights and laughter to the dark days of winter. We want to ward off the commercial excesses of the season and create an authentic, joyful celebration in tune with our unique needs and desires.

Unlike other book contests, where I have given away a brand new book mailed to me from the publisher, this book was skillfully procured from my local Goodwill thrift shop!  I was actually reading this as a library book when I came across the Goodwill copy, and thought to myself that it would make the perfect Non-Consumer Advocate giveaway. It even has a hand written note in the front from the original owner!

To enter the contest, just write in the comments section about what you’re doing to de-commercialize the holidays. The winner will be chosen at random, please enter only once. The contest ends on December 9th at 12 A.M., Pacific time zone. Good luck!

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

Well we are in the full swing of the holiday gift giving season.  It is so easy to get caught up in the feeding frenzy that is this shopping season!  We thought we would share photos of some of the homemade gifts that we are giving or have been given to us.  Nothing says I love you like something that you have taken the time to make for someone special.

At Roberts Roost the kids have been busy making gifts.  RR built some bird houses,

JJ wove some scarves,

and helped mom make wreaths.

And they built a new crèche for to help celebrate the season.

Here at Chiot’s Run we celebrate a “homemade” Christmas each year. Gifts have to be homemade/handmade or something using your talents. We set a limit of $20 for supplies/ingredients. It’s always fun coming up with fun ideas. Since I love to sew, I made cloth shopping bags for all the ladies in my family last year. I plan on making more this year since I’ve received numerous requests. I usually use old curtains as the main fabric and cloth ribbon (100 yds for $5) so they’re very inexpensive. These cost me pennies each to make.

I also make homemade cinnamon rolls for everyone in both of our families. They’re a HUGE hit. I like giving gifts that get consumed so they don’t take up space, and who doesn’t love cinnamon rolls. I found these great tree shaped pans at a bakery supply place on-line. They cost me less than a dollar each!

I make tons of canned jams/jellies/chutneys as gifts as well. These are given to our professional/work friends. It makes a great gift since most people enjoy jams & jellies, especially the homemade kind!


I am famous for one Christmas specialty: chocolate covered cherries. I have people come out of the woodwork and drive hundreds of miles to get theirs during the holidays. I must say, they are good, I eat my share as I’m making them!

This year I made a calendar featuring a few of my photos for most of my family. I had them printed up at Lulu, but since I took all the photos myself I figure it counts as handmade? It was much cheaper to get them professionally printed than to try to do that part myself. They’re a huge hit with the few people that have received them already.

This year for me it is all about knitting…after years of not picking up my knitting needles I have taken it up again with a vengence.  Everyone is getting a scarf…or two!

White Grape Peach Jelly is the flavor this year in the Christmas baskets…yum!

There will be banana bread…

And apple raisin sticky buns…

And photo books all around!

So what handmade gifts are you giving this year?  What handmade gift have you been given in the past that is dear to your heart?

For as much as I cook, it took me until 2009 (A.D.) to own a set of good knives.  I owe this pointy acquisition to Black Friday.  For years I have ignored the siren call of the housewares department, as the neatly boxed sets of three and four hundred dollar knives seemed ridiculous.  I was content to purchase and re-purchase cheapo knives from Target or Wally World whenever my last steak knife fell apart. 

For the past couple of years, my knives had been the marriage of two separate cheap-o sets that had moved into the same block.  Some were wooden handled, some were black plastic handled.  The wooden ones were better.  The ones with the black handles had a bad habit of breaking at the pressure point whenever I attempted to slice into a block of Tillamook Colby Jack.  Yet, I kept the floppy knives instead of throwing them away, and used “just the blade” to be frugal.

But a recent Thursday full of sales changed all that.  I walked by a set of knives that I had admired for years.  This set’s price never dipped below the $300 mark.  But on this day, this magical day, they were On Sale for $50.  I decided it was time.  The box of knives went into the cart and came home with me.  I felt guilty for hours, I felt guilty for such an unplanned purchase until…

I COOKED DINNER.

The knives cut a hard winter squash as if it was a stick of butter in the sun.  Meats were no match for the sharp steel.  The handles were comfortable…they fit in my hand as if to say thank you for finally bringing us home. 

I freakin’ love my knives. 

Did I mention they have a lifetime warranty?

Ooh! I’m so excited! I may be the only person in the world that gets happy over defective presents. But there you have it. I said in an earlier post that I got Ruby an easel for $29 at our local toy store. Well, we opened it up, and it’s missing a screw and has a dinged up corner. Kevin went to return it today, and the owner let him have it for $10! I’m so happy, cause I searched again all day today, and can’t find anything for much less than $40. Stay tuned on the 9th for pics and one happy artistic five-year-old.

Ruby got this for her birthday from her grandparents. Since I’m not known for my patience, I let her open it when it came. She had fun with it for a bit, but it’s kind of a one trick pony with the light up bristles. The snotty-textured paint is not great to work with.  It made it hard to paint, cause there is a  delay, and the brush is really chunky and the cord makes it hard to manage. Still, she did like how the colors came up like magic. In Ruby’s world, magic is  good. 

What was GREAT to work with, was the box it was mailed in. Ruby picked it up, said “it looks like a house mama” and it was off to the races. Here’s what she had by the end of the day. Not shown is the plastic 1/2 gallon ice cream container that we recycled quite nicely into a dog house/grooming station.

If you look closely, you’ll see why Angel was so interested…

The little red thing is a Pam lid doing double duty as the pink poodle’s food bowl. We don’t own a dog, so it’s filled with cat food!

 I think the one area where we can really cut down on spending is food. When I was a single mother, my food money was tightly budgeted. Since remarrying six years ago, I have to admit that has gone out the window. Part of it is joy at not having to watch every penny anymore. Part of it is my issues with food being given free reign. Regardless, I’ve gained 60 pounds since getting married and I know that most of this is because without having to budget food I haven’t had to budget portions or how much crap food I eat either.

So here’s the plan. $100 a week for food, personal items, and cleaning products.  

There are bloggers doing it for less. But we have a couple mitigating circumstances. The first being, we’re 180 miles away from the nearest major chain grocery store. There are three small family owned stores, one of them a tiny chain, but they don’t compete. They each have the same things on sale each week. Now, we can go to the Family Dollar, which may occassionally have something on a closeout. But otherwise, we don’t have the option of shopping the loss leaders at several stores or going to a bakery outlet. Because we’re in such a small, remote town food prices are higher than in a city.

The second issue is that I can’t eat gluten. So I have to spend at least a little money on gluten free products if I want to eat anything baked.

Okay, so here’s the list I made looking at the grocery ad from our local grocery store for the upcoming week:

• packages of small steaks are on sale buy one get one free–regular price is about $7 for a package of five
• bacon, 2/$5
• 80 oz. chicken leg quarters, $3.39 (at $.67 per pound, this is a stock up price. We’ll get two.)
• 18 pack of eggs, $1.99
• Shredded motzerella cheese, $1.79
• 2 lb block cheddar cheese, $4.99
• 1/2 case of oranges (about 10 pounds), $6.99
• pears, $.79/lb, five pounds for $2.95
• apples, $.99/lb, five pounds for $4.95
• 1 gallon orange juice, $2.99
• Dole bagged lettuce, 2/$3
• bag of spinach, $1.50
• roma tomatoes, $1.39/lb, $3.00 worth
• 5 lbs potatoes, $1
• milk, $2.50
• four loaves bread, $6.00
• tortilla chips, $.87
• store brand corn flakes, $.99 (this is the lowest price I’ve seen at our local store for boxed cereal. We’ll stock up on five boxes.)
• family size broccoli soup mix, $2.97

Total: $68.42. That leaves some money for another gallon of milk later in the week, bringing it to $70.00 or so. We have a pretty full pantry, because we had a 25% off coupon bought with our store’s points that we combined with the semi-annual case-lot sale. We ended up spending about $500 (!) but the store tape said we saved almost $1000 (!!!) So for instance, we don’t have to spend anything but $1.79 for cheese to make the pizza. We’re also stocked up on Mexican tomato sauce, soup making ingredients, and muffin mix.  Having to buy those things would raise up the bill.

Here are the dinner plans for the week:

• steak, baked potato, grilled tomatoes (our big Sunday dinner)
• bacon, eggs, toast, orange juice
• homemade cheese pizza
• chips soaked in Mexican tomato sauce served with eggs, cabbage, and cheese
• broccoli soup and corn bread
• bbq chicken leg quarters, baked rice, sauteed spinach

Breakfasts are a get-your-own thing in our house. Choices are usually toast and eggs or hot or cold cereal.

Lunch is where things go wonky. Because I have a habit of eating lunch out. Sometimes breakfast too if I can’t face eating before 7 a.m. This has to stop. My plan is to make some cabbage soup (we already have the ingredients), also to make salads with left over meat. And to make my lunch the night before. I really can’t face food early in the morning.

I think doing some cooking ahead will also make a difference. I have a package of gluten-free muffin mix, so I’m going to whip those up. (The biggest problem with gluten-free baking is that it doesn’t hold well. You can’t make a double batch and eat them all week. They get weird. But if I freeze them, they should be ok. Gluten-free anything is better toasted, so I can stick a frozen muffin in the toaster oven. Nice!) I’m also going to make that soup, and maybe some cookies for the kids.

I’ve been poor. From mid-teens until about age 30, I was poor. Raising two kids on $12,000 a year poor. So I would hardly call the situation we find ourselves in today poor. We can pay all of our bills every month, which in my mind negates real poverty.

That being said, a couple of things have happened that have affected our bottom line. First, my ex-husband was laid off his job. A victim of the economy, and by proxy so are we because no income equals no child support. And second, because of my school schedule, I cut my work hours from 40 to 20 per week. Those two things equate to about a 1/3 reduction in our monthly income.

So, is poverty (or the feeling of poverty) the mother of creativity? It’s my experience that it can be. For the last several years, we’ve been able to pretty much spend without much thinking. We don’t budget for groceries, for dinners out, for clothing or entertainment. When we wanted something, we just bought it. Our new situation necessitates that we actually become mindful of our money and where it goes. I can’t help but think that’s not entirely a bad thing.

It isn’t exactly news that Christmas is in a few weeks. This year’s gift-giving is going to be significantly different than in years past. My husband is a little freaked out by that, but I’m finding it exciting. We have three birthdays (Kevin, Nick, Ruby) and Christmas all in December, starting with Ruby’s 5th Birthday on the 8th. Here’s some things we have planned:

1. I picked up Ruby an art easel at the local toy store for about $30. This is more than I would have liked to spend, but after months of looking, I wasn’t able to find one at the thrift stores or a garage sale. I really love living in a rural area, but being 250 miles away from big cities and big thrift stores occassionally has it’s draw backs. Ruby is very in to art, and this easel will last her throughout her childhood. She also has paper and crayons from the Family Dollar to go with it. This gift can be built on for Christmas with more art supplies.

2. When our computer got a terrible virus last summer, and I was panicked about getting my school work done, I bought an Acer mini laptop for $250 from Wal-Mart. Now that our big computer is working again. Nick is getting it as a 16th birthday present on the 12th. He already knows, and is ecstatic. Obviously a $250 gift isn’t frugal, but we already own it. Also, Adrienne and Nick’s dad has a tradition of buying our kids and his stepkids a computer for their 16th birthday (he is NOT frugal!!) Since he’s out of work, that isn’t going to happen this time. Just a fact of life.

3. We’re making some of Ruby’s Christmas presents. Specifically a doorway puppet theater with puppets, and a dollhouse with furniture. I’ll post more about them, with pictures and everything soon. I wasn’t so sure about the doll house…until yesterday when Ruby took the box her birthday gift from her grandparents came in and made her own doll house, then spent all day making furniture for it. She woke up this morning and jumped right to it again. She’s added dog grooming business made out of a plastic ice cream container. How’s that for the mother of creativity?

4. Last summer I took a cross-country train ride to a conference in Washington DC. The train hit a tow truck and I missed part of the conference. Amtrak sent me a $150 gift certificate. It’s going to be used to buy Adrienne’s Christmas present. A train trip to San Francisco, including a tour of UC Berkeley. This won’t happen until the spring, because driving conditions between us and the train station 180 miles away are hard to predict in the winter.  But she’s super excited about her adventure gift.

I had a fantabulous day today. I had a two hour class at work today, and because my workplace is nine miles away, I decided to make the most of this long drive.

And how do I make the most of driving all the way across town for a measly two work commitment?

Thrift stores baby, thrift stores.

After dropping checks off at the credit union, (I love my savings account so much that yes, I wish I could marry it!) I snaked my way across town hitting four different thrift stores as well as The Dollar Tree. Supposedly I was holiday shopping, but I found more for moí than anyone else.

The first thrift shop was a bust, but I struck gold at the Broadway Goodwill. I bought:

• A cool circa 1950’s bulldog cookie jar. (I have been looking for a vintage cookie jar as long as I can remember, and today was my lucky day.) $3.99.
• A tub of vintage marbles. These marbles could easily be sold for at least $50, so the $2.99 that I spent was a great deal.
• A $1.99 copy of Unplug The Christmas Machine, which I will use as a give-away on the blog.

I then walked across the street to The Dollar Tree store where I bought five bags of tortillas plus a jar of marinated red peppers. Tortillas at the grocery store cost at least $3, so $1 apiece is a great deal. The brand is exactly the same and it was nowhere near its expiration date. I threw them in the freezer.

I then drove across the river and hit up the West Burnside Goodwill store, where I scored:

• A like-new pair of boy’s Vans brand sneakers for $4.99. I was going to save them for Christmas, (as my son has been begging for a pair) but I decided to give them to him today as it occurred to me that a pair of used shoes that had the possibility of not actually fitting would be an extremely crappy Christmas present. Luckily, they fit.
• A large hanging canvas closet organizer for $4.99. I Set this up in the closet of our spare bedroom, which now means that towels no longer have to sit on a shelf, which frees up a whole big shelf for toiletries. (We have zero storage in our one bathroom and no linen cupboard, so keeping all the bathroom stuff organized is a challenge.)
• More wooden hangers for $1.99. Taking all our clothes off of plastic hangers and replacing them with sturdy wooden hangers has made me realize that I actually care more about have a pleasingly organized closet than I actually care about the clothes. Seriously.
• A small glass Pyrex bowl complete with snap-on lid for $1.99. Sweeeet!

• A Folkmanis brand $1.99 stuffed animal of a caterpillar that turns into a butterfly for my five-year-old niece. She was very clear during my last Seattle trip that visiting her without bringing a present is not acceptable. I will make sure that her holiday presents are without reproach.

The last stop on my journey was the William Temple House thrift shop. This store is in an area that can be near to impossible to find a parking space, but I scored a spot directly in front. (Yay!) I bought:

• A $1 drinking glass that completes a set we use. We were down to seven of these glasses, which was kind of annoying, as we often are serving meals for eight people.
• A $1 canvas tote bag, which I will use as part of a Christmas gift that I will be giving.

The best part of shopping here is that I have a gift certificate that I’ve been slowly chipping away at for two years. As of today, I’m down to $7.

The work class was everything I had hoped and dreamed. But at least I didn’t drive a long distance without anything to show for it. And yes, I stopped to buy lettuce and ginger snaps on the way home. Because what use is a cookie jar without the cookies?!

I do have to say that holiday gift shopping is so much more fun when it’s combined with the thrill of the hunt. I ♥ thrift stores so very much.

P.S. I did buy some actual holiday gifts, but I am unable to write about them because certain people have been known to read my blog.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

This Christmas may be a light one as far as spending goes, but light spending doesn’t have to mean few presents under the Christmas tree. Some great gifts can be found for $5 and under! At $5 Dining, we’re putting together a list of great $5 gift ideas for the Christmas season. Tell us your ideas, and you’ll be entered into a drawing for $50 in gift certificates! The deadline is December 12, so start brainstorming!

One of my favorite $5 gifts is the bargain music section at Best Buy where you can get classical CD’s (two in a set) for $4.99. Here are some other ideas:

$5 DVD’s–always a bargain!

Mugs–I love coffee, I love tea! If the mug is under $5, you could include an inexpensive pack of hot cocoa or herbal tea (I bought a box of hot cocoa for just a dollar the other day)

Gloves, Hats, or Socks–My mom used to always buy my sister and me a pair of socks for Christmas, and we loved it!

Picture frames–stick a favorite photo of you and the giftee inside, or if you’re recently married or graduated, put in a wedding/graduation photo and give it to your family, especially to those who couldn’t make it

Stuffed animals–it’s amazing how inexpensive some are

Bargain books/used books/children’s books–Check used book stores and your library (the central library in San Antonio) for great deals

Of course, a great $5 gift is a gift certificate to a $5 Dining restaurant, for example, $5 for fish tacos at Tycoon Flats or a $4.50 breakfast sandwich combo from It’s a Grind.

What are your ideas? Send them to us by clicking this link. For every idea, you get one entry in the drawing. Be sure to check back after the contest to see what other $5 Diners have come up with!

Good luck with your shopping and Happy Holiday Dining!

Annie
$5 Dining

I am in full vent mode today, so if I sound crazy it’s because my plans have been tossed aside by that bitch named Murphy. Regular readers know I am struggling to reduce my debt and live a more frugal life. It’s been going fairly well despite falling off the no Starbucks wagon. It’s those damn Peppermint Mochas that come out only in winter, they are so good and work is so stressful and well after work I like to unwind with a hot beverage. Yeah, I can make a Chai at home but damn those Peppermint Mochas are great. Thankfully I have been keeping to the budget in every other way so I am trying not to feel too guilty.

Well December in addition to being Christmas which we celebrate and generally requires me to spend some cash, it’s also car inspection time for us. What that means is we take the car to the mechanic and he determines whether or not we get the state required sticker that legally allows us to drive our car. Now being the good planner I strive to be these days, I had planned for this event using last year’s repair costs as the gauge for how much cash to save for this blessed little event. Turns out I got it wrong….very very wrong.

To repair our 12-year-old car and keep her on the road legally is going to cost a minimum of almost $1300 and I say minimum because there is one repair that Mechanic Man says he can’t give us the price on until he starts doing the work. Um….to say I was stunned and pissed is an understatement. Now we bought ole Bessie from a friend several years ago after our other car died after a very long stint with us. When we bought this car, it was a good alternative to going into debt since we had gone that route before and frankly I have decided I hate car payments. Getting a car on a 5 year loan seems like a great idea but for us it sucked. Problem is the cash car has been a bit of a money pit and now I am trying to plan our next steps.

Part of me wants to just pay the cash and fix ole Bessie but not having an exact price makes me very skittish, there is also the fact this car is as comfortable as a Cracker Jack box and is really too small for our family. On the other hand, I only have about 2G’s to buy a car in cash and at the moment, I am not running across a great deal of selection since thanks to the lovely Cash for Clunkers program, a lot of really decent used cars got taken out of circulation. So whereas at the beginning of the year I saw some decent cars for a couple grand, now that is not the case. Which leaves option three, go to a dealer and get a car and a car payment. Now as a member of the less than stellar credit club that means I will get a shitty deal as far as financing and as a member of the get the fuck out of debt club that pains me.

Problem is I live in Maine, a place with not a great deal of options when it comes to getting around sans a car. It’s possible but not really. I mean this ain’t NYC, Boston or Chicago. Plus I have a job, so as you can see I have a problem. The only upside is I have until the end of the month to solve it so I have time to explore my options but really barring a fabulous used car made in this decade, that is available for 2G’s, my options are not great.

So trusty reader, I ask you, what would you do in this situation? Do you take a chance and keep ole Bessie and sink a ton of cash into a 12 yo old car or do you decide enough is enough. Is this a good case for incurring some debt for a ride? Decisions….

Last week I hung out with my parents in the home that I grew up in – from 5th grade on anyway. They’ve lived in the same home for 32 years (is that right? - my how time flies).

While I was home I ate at this table:

My parents bought this table when I was born, 43 years ago. Many meals, games, art projects, and conversations have taken place around this table. My parents have no plans to replace the table. Why would they? The table is solid wood with leaves and an indestructible finish. It’s the perfect table.

In our increasingly disposable world, it’s so refreshing to see something built for the long haul.

Take a bite out of landfill waste:

1. Buy quality – things that are made to last.
2. Take care of your things, so you don’t need to trash or replace them.

My kitchen table is ten years old and I hope to play cards on it with my grandkids someday. I don’t need a new table. My table is accumulating memories and it’s built to last.

How old is your table?

Sidenote: I’m not a Deadhead, but found it interesting that ‘Built to Last’ was the thirteenth and final studio album by the Grateful Dead (released in 1989).

Okay, so it’s not really 101; it’s nine, but some of them are really good.  Let me know if you can think of more. 

1. Make ricotta cheese.  (I have done this, and it’s quite tasty, but the amount of ricotta you get from the leftover whey is (in my opinion) not worth the time it takes.)  If you really must try making your own ricotta, here you go:
   Bring the whey almost to a boil (200° F).  The ricotta will begin to precipitate out of the whey and form little white particles that float around in your whey.  Line a colander with a cloth napkin and set it over a large bowl or pot to catch they whey.  Hang the ricotta to drain.  After it has drained for a few hours, salt it to taste.  Keeps in the fridge for up to two weeks.
2. Boil potatoes in it.
3. Make lemonade. (I haven’t tried this myself yet, but it sounds delicious.)
4. Use it in place of milk or water in your oatmeal. If you eat oatmeal every morning like I do, you’ll use it up quickly.
5. Make dog food.
6. Water plants with it.
7. Bake bread
8. Add it to the stock when making homemade soup
9. Use it to cook rice, bulghur, barley or other grains.

A little bit of geek talk that has nothing to do with photography or Art. I’ve always had a strong interest in free software and naturally it led me to Linux about 2 years ago. Even though I couldn’t use Linux in my previous job as a designer, I had the chance to fiddle with it from time to time on my old computer. I believe in using computers till they can’t be repaired or it will simply take too much time or money to fix it. Over the years my friends’ obsolete computers collected in my room and I could find any uses for them other than installing Linux and learning about this mysterious open-source beast.

The beauty of Linux is that it has so many different branches that you can find any ‘Distro’ for just about any computer with any hardware. Even a 486 computer with 16MB RAM can be made to run.

This time round, I’ve installed Arch Linux on a relatively powerful machine with virtualbox. Needless to say, I’m setting off with just command-line and hoping to build upon it–installing only applications that I truly need. Forget about a GUI since I’m using it for typing, surfing the Internet for information, listening to music, general pissing around in IRC and IM. Definitely don’t need a GUI for all that jazz, but doing all this in the ancient command-line can really test ones patience. Still, there’s always something new to learn and I get bored too easily.

All I’m saying for now is that I’m enjoying myself and hoping to install Linux on that 4 year old computer sitting in the corner collecting dust. I hope to turn it into a Jukebox and maybe with a little Internet connective for those days I want to listen to an Internet radio channel.

Don’t throw that old computer out, turn it into something useful.

The Green Fork Blog the other day posted about this article from the Washington Post: “Eating Down the Fridge.”

The basic premise is simple: In the wake of the Thanksgiving holiday, eat or freeze your leftovers, and then take a week off grocery shopping. Challenge yourself to see what’s in that tall cold box in the kitchen and see what fun and innovative meals might be lurking in its depths.  It’s interesting to contemplate how much annual grocery money might be saved by making a habit of this, you know?  Food for thought (pun intended)…

It’s too late for us; we already went Sunday, mostly because the previous week we only bought Thanksgiving stuff and were out of some of what my family considers to be “staples”–cereal, milk, stuff like that.  But we may try it some other week, just see what happens.

Remember a few weeks ago, when I was wrestling over a decision to buy a DSLR.  Well, we did a ton of research and we purchased a refurbished Canon T1i camera body.  I can use the lenses from my old film cameras on this new digital, saving us a little bit of money.

That’s my new camera body and old lenses.  I’m so excited to be shooting with lenses again.  Or rather I will be once I get a new memory card and the battery charges.  Thanks to everyone who offered me advice when I was wrestling over the camera.  It truly helped me.  Jeff was on board the minute I said it was time and it was his extensive research that got us an incredible deal from a Canon authorized refurbishing company.  I’m continually blessed by that man in so many ways. 

I’m uber excited and can’t wait to start taking photos with my new camera.  I will admit that I’m still struggling a bit with the cost, but that’s fading and I know this will be helpful to me in the long run.

I’ll be selling my old Olympus SP-350 8 megapixel point and shoot camera in the next few weeks, too.  If you might be interested e-mail me (mtkatiecakes AT yahoo DOT com) and I can give you more info. 

Silence Dogood here. This week’s Frugal Living Tip is about clipping coupons. Well, not exactly. Luddites that we are, here at Hawk’s Haven I still clip coupons from the circulars in our local paper. (My beloved mama, who despised coupon-clipping as a massive waste of time, must be turning in her grave.) But this week, the paper featured an interesting story on getting the most from e-coupons. (Read the whole story, “A new generation of penny pinchers” by Carolyn Bigda, online at www.themorningcall.com.)

According to the article, the two big online coupon sites are Coupons.com and Shortcut.com. In order to print the e-coupons, you have to download free software from each site. (Gads.) But apparently plenty of people are: In the first five months of 2009, consumers saved $300 million using Coupons.com coupons.

Now, however, Coupons.com has launched a user-friendly feature that is sensible to the point of being awesome. I quote: “There’s nothing worse than clipping coupons and later forgetting to use them at the store. [Well, I could think of a few worse things.---Silence] So Coupons.com has recently launched a feature allowing you to load coupons from its site onto your store loyalty card. At checkout, simply swipe the card and the coupons automatically get deducted from your bill.” The bad news is that, at this point, only Safeway-owned stores are honoring the card coupons, and not all brands are included. (Besides Safeway, stores accepting the card coupons include Dominick’s and Tom Thumb, none of which are in our area.) The good news is that Coupons.com expects other chains and manufacturers to jump on the bandwagon.

Given the price of printer ink, I think this is a great innovation. No printouts, no downloaded software, no hassle. But I ask myself, how do you remember which coupons you’ve put on your card? Back to the good old grocery list. And yes, of course I hand-write mine.

But you can always create a custom printout grocery list like my friend Delilah does. She lists all the staples she and Chaz (and their dog Dukie) eat each week and puts check boxes next to each item, then adds blank lines at the end of the list for non-standard items. By grouping a bunch of these lists on a standard 8-by-10-inch grid, she can print out a page of them, cut them apart, and then check off the items she needs that week and add any extras, keeping the additional lists to use later. Great idea!

However you make up your list, if you’re lucky enough to be able to use the card-coupon option, I’d suggest putting an asterisk next to any items you’re planning to use the invisible coupons for. Then you won’t forget to pick up the items and also won’t forget what coupons you’ve put on the card. (Make sure you note next to the item if you have to buy a certain number or size for the coupon to be valid.)

The article listed another resource I’d never heard of. If you use coupons, you probably try, as I do, to combine them with store sales for maximum savings. But if you’re not sure what’s going to be on sale, apparently there are online sites that actually list coupon/sales matches at specific stores. Check out CommonsenseWithMoney.com, DealSeekingMom.com, and Hip2Save.com. Whoa, who’d'a thunk?! I guess you really can find practically everything on the internet if you just know where to look.

One last piece of advice. The article quoted an “expert” as saying that you’ll get the most from your coupons if you buy in advance, i.e., before you’re desperate for something and have to rush out and buy it no matter how much it costs. So true. Last week, I was frantic. I’d run out of soy and tamari sauce and was planning to make my marvelous, rich Mushroom-Cashew Stroganoff, which calls for one or the other, for guests. Yikes!!! I wasn’t looking forward to paying full price for what was probably an inferior soy sauce because I lacked the time and money to buy high-end tamari or a superior aged soy sauce. Fortunately, my next-door neighbor came to my rescue and leant me her soy sauce. And then this morning I found a bottle of extremely high-quality soy sauce lurking in my liquor cabinet. Whew! But yes, buying before the need arises is a great money-saving strategy that lets you combine coupons and sales and buy at your convenience, when the price is right.

If, like my mama, you feel that clipping and using coupons is a ridiculous waste of time in comparison to the money saved, I’d like to end with a quote from our hero and blog mentor, Benjamin Franklin: “A penny saved is a penny earned.”  Combining coupons and store sales, it always cheers me up at checkout to hear the cashier tell me I’ve saved a fourth, a third, or even a half of my grocery bill. That’s one pretty penny!

            ‘Til next time,

                       Silence

I’m going to be canceling my landline service in the near future. I’ve only kept it this long because I don’t get cell range at home, or thought I didn’t, but I’ve recently discovered that I get four bars on my cell if I’m in the new addition, facing North, standing on one foot and wearing a hat. Score! That’ll save me a chunk of money every month, even though I’ll have to buy an external phone speaker to amplify my crappy little Tracfone’s volume.

As an added bonus I won’t have to talk to women trying to get hold of Steve anymore, or men who think they’re calling Steve’s house and mistake me for one of his women. (And not always the woman he’s currently living with, which somehow still annoys me even though I’m not the one he’s cheating on now.)

ANYWAY, If we’re friends you probably already have my cell number, but if you don’t and you want it drop me an email and, if we’re friends, I’ll give it to you. I’m not sure exactly when my landline service will end, but it’ll be soon.

Transition to wall-drawing cave-dweller: 63% complete.

I try really hard not to be a coupon blog – I think that’s a distinct niche that, while I’m happy to read them, I don’t want to be one. But yesterday I had a trip to Rite Aid that seems worth writing about. And I suspect it just supports my mother’s coworker’s opinion that it helps to have a PhD in Math from Columbia to pull this stuff off.

So here is a compilation of my 3 transactions, with coupons used, rebates qualified for, and other bonus stuff…

Purchased: $79.01 + $5.95 sales tax
15.00 – 6 Herbal Essences shampoo/conditioner on sale, 2.50 each
34.96 – 6 Herbal Essences stylers, 2 @ 2.50, 4 @ 7.49
4.99 — 1 Oral B Power toothbrush
4.98 — 1 Oral B Advantage toothbrushes on sale, 2.49 each
11.60 – (4) Scrubbing Bubbles Shower Cleaner refills, 50% clearance 2.90 each
5.49 — Dry Idea roll-on deodorant, BOGO Free
1.99 — Keebler Fudge Shoppe cookies, sale 1.99

Coupons Used: $69.21
-15.00 - (3) Rite Aid $5/$25 purchase coupons
-34.96 – (6) Herbal Essences Buy Shampoo/Conditioner, Get a Free Styler
- 2.50 — Free Herbal Essences product
- 1.00 — $1/1 Herbal Essences product
- 2.00 — (2) $1/2 Herbal Essences products
- 1.00 — Keebler Fudge Shoppe cookies
- 4.00 — (2) $2/2 Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner refills
- 4.00 — (2) $2 Dry Idea roll-on
- 3.00 — Crest Power toothbrush
- 1.00 — Crest Advantage toothbrush
-  .75  — Crest Advantage toothbrush

Rebates Qualified For:  $24.80
2.00 Crest Advantage toothbrushes
2.00 Crest Power toothbrush
5.00 SC Johnson $5 rebate on 3 products (Scrubbing Bubbles)
$15.80 Rite Aid Gift of Savings – $20 store credit back on $100, so calculated @ 20%

Gross cost (out of pocket): $9.80 + $5.95 tax = $15.75
Net cost after rebates:  +$9.05 profit

I’m keeping the Scrubbing Bubbles cleaner refills for me and my brother, the rest is being donated. I was hoping to get milk and Arizona iced tea, but the refrigerators still hadn’t been restocked from the weekend. Also, most of the coupons I used were expiring that day, and my last transaction came in just under the gun at 11:54pm. Oh, and wonder of wonders, the evening manager had clearly gotten some quality training on the use of coupons and lightly scolded the cashier for being so reluctant to take all my coupons because “they’re as good as cash”. It was hard not to giggle, because it wasn’t until I gave them their own coupon policy that this manager warmed up to me.

I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since I wrote anything! November didn’t slow down at all after my last post; in fact it became so busy that it flew by. My poor NaNoWriMo got abandoned just before I hit the 10,000-word mark, and it wasn’t because of procrastination either. December is going to be equally frantic, so I’d better write while I have a spare moment. Let me try to sort out the pregnancy-related November stuff from the blur of everything else that happened…hmm…

We’re starting to solidify our parental leave plans. We’re down to two basic options: one where I take all my leave and then NT takes all his leave when I’ve exhausted mine, and one where I take the first three weeks off after the birth and then work two days a week and stay home three days a week, and NT stays home the other two days and works three days. Both of our jobs are amenable to an intermittent  kind of leave, but NT needs to sit down with his and figure out what would be less painful for them–him working short weeks for three months, or being gone for six weeks straight. He’s very instrumental in the day-to-day operations of his company. I guess I am to mine too, but at least there’s one other person who does my job too. At NT’s it’s just him; plus he’s the backup for someone else who hardly has any backup.

Either way, we’ve recently decided that we want to take the last week of our available leave together. Yes, it will shorten the time we keep figlet out of daycare by a week, but if AS takes the week off too, we’ll have a week together as a family, and that won’t happen again for a while.

We came to this decision in a roundabout way. We’ve promised our families a visit in 2010 so they can all meet the new baby. Paid time off will be in short supply due to taking some of it during our parental leave, and times when NT won’t also be in college are rare, so we were thinking the obvious best solution would be to visit NT’s family over Labor Day and mine and AS’s over Thanksgiving. But one day I mentioned how it would be kind of sad to miss two Thanksgivings at home in a row (since we were going to Thanksgiving at my sister’s home this year), and AS’s feelings spilled over. She really didn’t want to miss two of our own Thanksgivings, especially when they were 1) the last Thanksgiving with just the three of us and 2) the first Thanksgiving with figlet. So we thought about it some more, and AS suggested that we visit our Virginia relatives during the last week of our parental leave, which would occur near the end of June or beginning of July. The baby will be three-plus months old by the end of parental leave, no matter when it’s born and when we start the leave. Old enough to travel by plane, I think, and talk about a cute age at which to show it off! So we still have to clear our final plans with our jobs, but that seems to be the best option for us. If all goes well, our little globe-trotter will have taken two plane trips and visited another country by the time it’s six months old!

Figuring out health care has been an absolute nightmare, full of speculation and trying to understand worst-case scenarios. But I finally settled on two possible options, thank goodness, and enrolled in my company’s plan with NT. The other option is to keep NT on his own company’s health insurance, but we don’t have the details of his plan and we know their provider wants to hike up costs by 18%. My HR department has agreed to let me drop NT if we decide that his plan is better for him as an individual. Either way, figlet is coming on my plan, because I have more (as in, any at all) health problems than NT, so it’s better to have me and the baby chipping away at a deductible together versus separately (since I’m sure figlet will have medical needs in its first year). I’m sure NT will have medical issues at some point down the road, but I think his total health costs last year, minus dental, were less than $50 combined. The year before that we set aside $120 in his flex spending account and we ended up having to buy loads of OTC painkillers and cold meds so he didn’t just lose the money. As for me, my health care costs could easily reach $4000 before the year is over. Next year I’m thinking it would be nice if me and the baby stayed under $5000 out of pocket for the year. And to think I’m one of the lucky ones. Sigh. I feel so patriotic. Go America!

This month, the goal is to call around and start gauging daycare costs; what our options are for vegetarian-friendly, cloth-diaper-allowing places; and how soon we need to reserve a spot somewhere. I’m really wanting to stick to a $1200-per-month budget for early daycare, but the one place that’s open about its prices is more than that. So we’ll have to see. AS and I have this pipe dream that all our friends who are currently pregnant and the ones with small children will someday want to band together and get some kind of co-op nanny deal going. Seems too hard to manage, but we will probably ask around. First off, though, we need to get a sense of what traditional daycare centers have to offer and what they cost.

I think that’s all the money stuff out of the way. Oh, I did figure out a big cost savings last night. NT’s job is having a cocktail Xmas party this week, and I was flummoxed as to what I was going to wear. Well, AS’s clothes are a few sizes larger than mine, so I raided her closet last night and found a few pretty dresses made of stretchy material. Voila! Two of them fit and were even kind of flattering. So depending on what she wants to wear, I’m going to get to wear one of those. Cost of maternity cocktail dress I’d probably only wear once: $0. Woo hoo! On the down side, the task of cramming my breasts into my regular bras is getting harder and more comical every day, so I’m probably going to have to buy a couple new ones today. Sad, but oh well. Since I’m only going to need them for a few months, I’m going to cheap out on them. I should probably just bite the bullet and buy a nursing bra, but I can’t bring myself to think about that yet!

OK, on to my pregnancy. Another reason I haven’t felt the need to blog all month is that nothing new has been happening except my belly growing. However, at Thanksgiving, I got an inkling that’s about to change. First off, it was nearly impossible to get comfortable in the rental car, whether I was driving or just a passenger. My back hurt constantly and my belly felt squeezed in my lap. Then, being with my family really emphasized the physical changes, because we’re a group that likes to  play tons of games in large groups, and usually the floor is the best place to do so. Playing cards, or just sitting for long periods of time on the floor for other games, proved to be a challenge. Same problems as the car, achy back and squashed-feeling belly, combined with a certain awkwardness trying to get up afterward.

When I have to run, I can feel myself sort of waddling a bit. Legs held a bit wider so as to support my middle. And I get easily winded. Now I know part of it is that I haven’t been getting much exercise except for the hour of wandering around at lunch, but I think another part is all my organs starting to get crowded and cramped. My heartburn yesterday was so constant that I exceeded the recommended daily maximum of Tums. Vacuuming makes my back hurt. Tying my shoes makes me pant for breath afterward. My snoring has grown so loud — from a combination of being constantly congested, everything being pushed out of place inside me and only having a few comfortable sleeping positions — that I even wake myself up sometimes.

Our new cat’s meows (he seems to be growing more and more clingy and demanding) early in the morning wake me up. I mean completely awake. I’m a sleep-till-the-last-minute kind of girl, always have been, and I go to work a good hour after NT, but now I usually just get up and hang out with him at 6:30 or 7 instead of clinging to the snooze option until about 8 or 8:15. I really do think that it’s because my body and mind are so attuned to the cries of small creatures.

I’ve started to circle the question of labor in my dreams. Before, as I’ve probably mentioned at some point, my dreams were all about pregnancy followed by the baby being already born and at home. Even my dream-self found this odd and would try to remember what labor and delivery had been like, but it was always a complete blank. Now I’ve had one or two dreams about being in a hospital with back and stomach pains (the closest my body can come to figuring out what contractions will feel like), lying down, sitting on a bouncy ball, waiting for a doctor to arrive. Nowhere near the worst bits yet, but this is the closest I’ve come to labor in my dreams. I think my mind and body are trying to prepare me gradually without scaring me too much.

Talking to my sisters and my mom a little bit about pregnancy, I’m actually feeling a bit reassured. Despite how crazy and foreign all these maternal instincts I’m getting seem to me, I realize more and more that the women in my family are sort of completely oriented toward childbirth. I’ve read tons of blogs and forums where many many women complain of feeling disgusting, hating every second of pregnancy, not being able to be excited about their future baby, etc. I really haven’t experienced any of that. Yeah, I know this trimester has been a walk in the park compared to the one I’m about to enter. But I’m a hypochondriac and a big baby when it comes to physical problems, yet I’ve been cheerfully taking every bizarre symptom pretty much in stride, and I used to have this phobia about being tied down, but now feel excited about the prospect of having another human being completely dependent on me for years and years. I know this blog probably seems like I worry all the time and obsess about my physical symptoms, but really once I get things out here I don’t dwell on them in my everyday life. I’m starting to think I come from a real childbearing-oriented line of people. I’m starting to think that everything could be OK, even the labor and delivery. Yes, maybe even the breastfeeding.

Due to technical problems here at the Roost I missed my Friday post about Grazing and my chance to post my Frugality pictures on Sunday.  The grazing post will happen in the next few weeks, but the Frugality Pictures are on a still smoking hard drive and somewhat inaccessible.  So, first a thought about frugality.  Buying a cheep outlet strip instead of a good quality surge protector is not a savings.  Neither is the few seconds saved by not backing things up.  Hopefully that lesson is now learned.

Yesterday was haircut day at our house.  A family togetherness exercise that happens about every six weeks.  After 15 years of haircuts we are finally to the point that there are few tears, little fear, and a bit of efficiency.

  It wasn’t always that way, but it is a pretty good time now.  So we chatted about life as CC clipped my hair.  We laughed about how long she had been cutting my hair and how steep the learning curve had been.  She got good fast.  Having to go out in public with someone is motivation to do a good job on their hair.  She cuts all our hair.  (I cut hers too, until she can’t stand it any more and goes out to have someone who can do more than cut a straight line do it.)  She even cut hair for the cowboys on the ranch we worked at.  They would trade beer for haircuts.  By the end of the evening the cuts got a bit interesting, but no one seemed to care.

I’d been fretting about today’s post and the lack of frugality pictures.  As she clipped away I started counting up haircuts.  She has been cutting my hair for the last 15 years.  That’s about 120 haircuts.  I’ve probably gotten my hair cut by someone else 3 times in those 15 years (and never been happy with it!)  When I have gone out to get my hair cut the price has been around $15.00.  Thats quite a bit of money.  I asked CC how many times she had gone out for a haircut.  She goes about once a year.  I cut it the rest of the time.  Then we added in the kids.  Combined they have had about 160 haircuts in the last 15 years, and gone out maybe 5 times.  So, here’s the breakdown,

Me     120 – 3= 117

CC      120 – 15 = 105

Kids  160 – 5 = 155

Total = 377  haircuts at an average of $15.00 each (CC’s would cost more and the kids a bit less.)

Thats a savings of $5655.00 over the past 15 years. 

We have had 3 sets of clippers in that time. (Probably could have done it with one, but we moved to NZ where they are on a different power system.  Replaced clippers then and when we came back.)  The clippers cost about $40.00.  One of them came even came with a training DVD which improved the quality of our haircuts a lot.