Been on a Blogging Vacation.

I found that I needed to take a break from blogging for a couple of weeks during a busy time for me.  It also gave me time to just think about everything I have going on in my life.  No, I’m not having a mid-life crisis.  You see, September is that time when kids are going back to school and for me it is the best time to evaluate what I am doing and if I need to make any changes.

During July I began my training at the public library which took about two weeks.  Then I worked my regular part time hours plus I filled in for some full time employees who were on vacation.  Toss into that the normal August chaos of my husband coaching cross country and it got a little hectic.  My schedule has settled down and I am now working my normal 5 hours each Saturday at the library.

I can now breathe some.  Tonight I am spending some time looking at the calendar and planning out September.  This summer I was unable to work on scraping and painting the outside of our house.  It just wasn’t going to happen in 105 degree Fahrenheit weather.  Now I don’t have as much time to get the job done so I am having to compromise.  My plan is to paint the main color on the lower half of the house plus the two overhangs over the large windows in the living room and the dining room.  It is what I am going to refer to as the minimum requirement of painting on the house for this year.  If I have more time and the weather holds, I will do more. 

Next up is to clean the inside of our house from top to bottom in order to get ready for the winter months ahead and that means digging through closets and getting rid of “stuff.”  I also need to spend some time washing windows inside and outside, something that I have been putting off. 

I got behind on a lot of my housework and household projects this year.  I'm digging my way out.  

In order to get back on track on some of these projects I need to take an hour or so each week to review my calendar and review my plans.  I really need to stay on task in order to stay on top of all of the housework and the projects we have to get done in our house.  This is hard as I get sidetracked very easily. 

It’s odd but once I take out my calendar and get some planning done, I feel inspired to get to work and get things done.  It kind of takes me back to my days at the law firm when I loved to look at the work calendar and plug projects into place and then I worked the plan in order to get everything done.  I apply the same principle to my home.  Take the task, break it down into manageable pieces and calendar when you will get the pieces done.  It doesn’t take a special computer program to do this, a simple calendar and a spiral notebook will work just fine.

Now on to food . . . well, I’m sure all of you have noticed that the prices on many items have gone up.  It was a given with the drought.  I never thought I would be paying $1.89 a lb. for apples.  We live near some apple orchards and the drought has really affected their crops.  Again, it was expected to happen.  So, I have found that I have to bite the bullet and pay the price for fresh produce as we go through a lot of apples and bananas.  Today I was able to buy whole cantaloupe for only 99 cents each, so I bought three.  Also I have had several people give me some cucumbers, peppers and zucchini from their garden, which I gladly accepted.  Last month a neighbor was going to be out of town for 5 days and he asked me to pick up his mail, water his tomatoes and flowers and keep an eye on his house.  In return instead of getting paid (something I refused to do) he told me I could have as many tomatoes as I wanted from his tomato patch.  What a deal.  We ate our fill of grape tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and beef steak tomatoes. 

The best way I know to save on produce is:   1.  Don’t overbuy.  In other words, don’t buy so much produce (or anything else) that it spoils before you can use it.  I would rather go to the grocery store every two days to pick up fresh produce than to have the stuff go wilty and mushy in the produce drawer in my fridge.  2.  If the prices are too high on some produce such as berries or peaches (as an example), then don’t buy them.  Go with cheaper produce such as apples, pears or bananas or buy the berries in their frozen form if cheaper.  3.  If you have a local Farmer’s Market see if their prices are cheaper or if you have a neighbor that has a garden with surplus produce, consider approaching them and ask if you can purchase some of their produce.  Or better yet, make a trade.  For example, I would bake a few loaves of my whole wheat sour dough bread in return for fresh produce from someone’s garden.  4.  It’s too late this year, but next year consider planting a small garden. In my case I want to plant some tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers only if we don’t have another drought year. 

If you are struggling with your budget due to high prices on many commodities, you may have to make some serious decisions.  Cut in one area of your budget to find the money to spend on food if you need to or find a way to increase your income.  I can tell you that there are a lot of people who use our local library instead of paying for cablevision in their homes.  Many people come in to borrow dvd’s, books, c.d.’s and more for their entertainment versus paying for cablevision.  Many others have cancelled their internet service and use the library’s computer lab or the library’s wi-fi. 

As to increasing income, I had an opportunity recently that fell in my lap. My neighbor needed someone to watch her 8 year old son 4 days after school.  I decided to do it.  I get paid $5 (each day) to watch him for a little over an hour.  This little guy is the nicest little boy and he is very polite.  I fix him a snack and talk to him, help him with his homework and I let him watch some public television.  He is old enough to go the grocery store with me and I actually look forward to seeing him after school. 

So if you’re struggling and getting discouraged, take heart.  You can make it, but you may have to make some decisions and let go of some conveniences in order to meet your budget.  

Drought 2012 - The News Isn't Good

In 2007 to 2008 we experienced our first “Rainy Day” in a long time in this country.  It came in the form of a profoundly severe economic crisis.  It was this Rainy Day that those who lived through the Great Depression and World War II would have said that we needed to be prepared for.  There was a lot of heartache during that timeframe and it was in the fall of 2008 that I learned that I would become one of millions who would be unemployed in 2009.  We went into crisis or Rainy Day mode to get debt reduced and some money in the bank so that we could live only on my husband’s income.  Hence, this blog, The Path to Frugality was born almost 3 years ago in September. 

I have noticed something in the past year and it is that people believe that frugality is for “weird” people.   From 2008 to 2011 frugality was the trendy thing to do but as people got tired of feeling deprived (when they really didn’t need to feel deprived), they headed back to the stores with their credit cards.

Well, another rainy day has arrived and if you haven’t been getting prepared, you need to start preparing your family now.  It’s not just with food, but you need to get money into savings to prepare for job losses, rising costs of everything.  Yes, everything.  We live in a cause and effect economy and if you have a shortage on corn, everything that has corn as an ingredient will cost you more.  The same goes for meat in which corn is used in feed.  There is also a trickle down effect on jobs.  Farmers aren’t going to be able to purchase new farm machinery which will lead to manufacturer’s of those machines laying people off, which will affect communities as those workers will not have money to spend in the community and so on and so on.

This new crisis of drought goes one step further beyond the rising costs of food, gasoline and other commodities.  It is shortages.   Yes, it is the shortages that are costing us more at the grocery store.  The news has reported that the average family of four will spend $615 more next year in groceries due to the drought.  Also it was reported that the total number of cattle in the U.S. is the smallest number in 60 years due to ranchers selling off their herds because they can’t afford to feed them.  Those ranchers are now getting $150 less per animal. 

One poultry producer reported that they are paying $9 for a bushel of corn which is the highest they have ever paid for corn (up a total of 40%).  It takes about 12 weeks for a chicken to grow to the point of being butchered.  We will be seeing poultry at record prices in a short time.

On this site I have given numerous tips over the past 3 years on saving money.  Other sites that I follow do a very good job of money saving advice.  Frugality is going to be the way of life for many of us and that is, as Martha Stewart would say “A Good Thing.”  It’s not bad or shameful to be frugal, instead it is being mindful of your resources and it brings freedom.  What kind of freedom?  Freedom from worry.  If you are prepared, you don’t worry about your future as you know you have a sense of security because you can weather a job loss or a loss in spending power.

Continue to take care of the resources you have.  If you need a new couch because it is worn, sew a slipcover or purchase a slip cover if you can’t sew.  Learn to fix things on your own where practical.  Avoid purchasing what you can and put as much money into savings as possible.  As you are saving if you do come across a great deal on food, then stock up. 

Continue to make your own cleaners.  If you run out of your favorite laundry detergent, try making your own own laundry soap to save money or mix your detergent with a generic brand. 

Search this site for other money saving tips or check out my blog roll and look at the other blogs that I follow for ideas.  I can guarantee that if you put your head in the sand now, you will regret it in 6 months.

Staying the Course . . .

To borrow the phrase from President George W. Bush, we should stay the course and keep on doing what we are doing.  No time for slackers.  Sometimes we get tired and sometimes we feel the pressure to slack off on frugality and spend some money when we really shouldn’t, but we get back on track.  So we go from Slackers to Trackers in this frugal journey we are on.

Recently I was helping in my friend’s store for a morning and a woman came in and said she needed some more makeup foundation.  She had said that she had squeezed everything out of the tube that she could.  I said have you tried cutting off the bottom and opening up the tube to get the rest?  She looked at me and laughed.  I realized that she thought I was making a joke but I wasn’t.  We frugal people are different from the rest of the world.  We are the ones who get the last bit of foundation, lotion, shampoo or whatever out of a tube or bottle.  I have always been amazed at how much is left in a tube of foundation or a bottle of lotion when you cut the bottom off and use a Q-tip to get the last bit of product left in the container. 

When you are on a tight budget, being wasteful is not an option.   As a rule we shouldn’t waste our resources.  Being wasteful is being disrespectful of the hard earned money that paid for the item.  Think about that.  When you are not getting the last bit of something out of a tube, you are being disrespectful to yourself. 

When I am in the kitchen my favorite frugal tool is a rubber scraper that I use to get the last bit of peanut butter, mayonnaise or anything out of a jar or can.  You would be surprised how much peanut butter can be scraped out of a jar with a rubber scraper.  Many times it is enough for two sandwiches, which is always worth the effort.  

Several years ago our landlord asked my husband if he would help him clean up another apartment after a tenant had left it quite messy. His wife had told me that the woman was confronted about the mess and was told that she wouldn’t get her deposit back.  Her response was that cleaners were too expensive for her to buy.  This, of course, was laughable, but I’ll never forget what the land lady had told her – that a generic bottle of dish soap (about 75 cents at that time) would have cleaned everything in the apartment.  It’s funny how some things stay with you.  Our land lady was right.  You could put a small amount of dish detergent in a bucket of water and clean everything in a home from floors to counters to mirrors.  That has always stuck with me.  So, in a pinch you could take a cheap bottle of dish detergent to clean your house.

One night last winter I was home alone for dinner.  I looked in the fridge and along with many items I saw 1 hardboiled egg.  I made a white sauce and added some cheese to it.  I took the egg and chopped it, and added it to the white sauce.  I then poured it over toast points.  This is one of those use it up kind of meals and it is something that appeals to me.  It wouldn’t appeal to the rest of my family though, but it tasted oh so good and it took me back to memories of my childhood when my mom would take small bits of this and that and make them into casseroles.  Frugal cookery means you need to learn how to create dishes from odds and ends to serve your family or yourself. 

I am not a picky eater, so I eat a lot of leftovers for lunch as does my husband.  I think that with the advent of the Food Network and many cooking shows, we have gotten away from basic cooking skills and we feel that every meal must be a gourmet treat.  Not so.  Good food does not have to be expensive due to expensive ingredients.  Use up what you have and create meals from those leftovers or on sale items.  Get a cookbook that was published in the 1950’s and you will find recipes for good home cooking that calls for basic ingredients. 

For my next post I am working on my thoughts on the Drought of 2012 and how it will affect us.  Here’s a hint:  If you are frugal, you will be able to maneuver your way through what is coming.  If you are not frugal, you still have time to change.

Thank you Grandma

I draw much of my frugal inspiration from my maternal grandma.  She was born in 1900 and raised a family during the Great Depression and died in 1985.  Grandma left me with many tips of how to live frugally.  Though many were never spoken, I learned these tips by watching her.  Here are a few:

Don’t spend money unless it is necessary.  Use up what you have on hand.  Grandma would carefully unwrap presents and save the wrapping paper.  Then before she stored it away she would iron the paper on low heat to take out the creases and restore it to near newness.  In fact, many times she didn’t use tape to wrap presents.  She would simply fold and wrap the paper on the box and keep it in place by tying the package with a ribbon.  That is what they did when she was a kid as they didn’t have scotch tape. 

How many times do you run to the grocery store for 1 item?  Grandma lived on a small farm in the country and you just didn’t run to a store for 1 thing.  In fact, you didn’t go to the store unless it was absolutely necessary.  So, she managed and she managed very well.  If there is one frugal tip she taught me it was not to run to the store for 1 thing but to see what you could substitute or just make do.

When you open a package of a block of cheese, don’t take all the plastic wrapping off.  It is the touch of your fingers on a block of cheese that causes it to mold.  Always hold it with some of the plastic wrapping on it when you slice or shred it.  If you do have cheese that goes moldy, cut or shred the moldy piece off and go ahead and use it in cheese sauces or casseroles. 

When you are laying out a pattern onto some fabric, keep your pins pushed into the base of an old candle such as a votive candle.  The wax makes the pins go into the pattern and fabric easily. 

If you are frying potatoes for supper and there are more people coming than

expected, Grandma would take a few slices of bread and tear them into pieces and fry them along with the potatoes.  Don’t knock it, it was very tasty and stretched the potatoes.

Grandma always saved the grease from frying bacon and used it to fry her potatoes, eggs or even in cooking green beans to give them a bacon flavor.  She knew just the right amount to add as her food never tasted greasy.

Grandma only made simple old fashioned cookies:  oatmeal, sugar, and molasses. She wasn’t into fancy kind of things.  She had variations for these cookies such as making oatmeal molasses cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, adding some orange peel and a little juice to the sugar cookie recipe and even some stale Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes to the cookie dough.  Nothing went to waste.  If something was stale such as some potato chips or bread, it was put in the oven to make the chips crisp again and to refresh the bread. 

If you want to save money, find someone who has lived through the Great Depression or World War II rationing and you will glean the very best advice ever for saving money and living on a budget.

Do You Have Dreams?

When you live on a frugal budget, you may think you cannot afford your dreams. I always thought that I traded being at home and living on a frugal budget in exchange for living my dreams. 

Last week I spent some time thinking about all the things I want to do. I began to think negatively since we are living on less money than we were 4 years ago when I was working a full time job and the money isn’t there. Then, during one of my many walks this week, I started to think how wrong that thinking was. I shouldn’t forget my dreams. Dreams are important.

So what are my dreams? I have some short term and some long term. Here are a few of my short term dreams:  To transform my home and really get down to re-decorating it. I want to travel to Prince Edward Island and to the Smokey Mountains which are the locations of two of my favorite books – Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery and Christy by Catherine Marshall. 

What are my other dreams? To travel to England and Normandy, France to visit World War II sites and to build a Victorian style home from scratch. 

The one constant in all of my dreams is money. That is the problem or should I say, the challenge. Yes, the challenge is to find a way to fund my dreams. I have come to believe that if I think I will never have the money to do something, then I never will. I may have to tweak my plan, but I must at least try.

Now, I may never get to Normandy, France but I can at least try to go to Prince Edward Island. I would love to build a Victorian home from scratch using old house plans, but I don’t think we will ever have the money to do so. But, I do live in a small Victorian type cottage home and I can put some money into making it look like an old Victorian home.

If you truly want something and you put that as a priority, you will find the money that it takes to fund that dream. So, when I am enticed to spend money on clothes that I really don’t need, I need to remind myself that that is money that I could put towards my dream trip to Prince Edward Island.

Three years ago when I lost my job my only dream was to be home full time and be a homemaker. This still brings me great joy. Three years later I find myself working a small part time job (5 hours, three Saturdays a month, at our public library). This job gives us a little extra money each month and doesn’t take me away from being a homemaker. It won’t totally fund my dreams, but having the mindset that I will never be able to afford my dreams, won’t work either.

Every day get into the mindset that you can have the dream that you long for, it may just take some time to save for it. It may not be exactly what you want, but you may be able to bring part of it to fruition. I may never be able to travel overseas, but I can at least try to save the money to do so. It may take 10 or 15 years, but it can happen or perhaps I may decide that I would rather do something else. At least I tried.

Never give up on your dreams even when you are living on a limited budget. You may have to give up some things such as only having one car, living in a smaller fixer upper house and making all your own clothes. Set that money aside for whatever it is you long to do or buy, but don’t ever let money get in your way of dreaming.

What are your dreams? Spend some time this week thinking about your dreams.

Sourdough Bread - The Busy Woman's Bread

If you want to save a lot of money and eat healthier, try baking your own bread.  I bake all of our bread, rolls, hamburger buns and even hot dog buns and I don’t use a bread machine either.  The main reason I make my own bread products is that I am able to make a better quality bread using such ingredients as whole wheat, flax seed and other whole grains.  The problem for me with bread making was in the timing of the rising, shaping and baking of the bread.  Now, I could overcome this with using a bread oven, but I have never had much luck with bread machines.  I would rather use my own hands to knead the bread and shape it. 

Recently I was given some sourdough starter and I have discovered that sourdough bread is the answer to fitting bread making into my busy schedule.  The timing from stirring to rising to baking is perfect because it takes a long time.   It is easy to fit this into anyone’s schedule.  

Sourdough bread takes longer to rise and in many cases the dough will need to rise all day.  You can easily mix it up and knead it in the morning, plop the dough into an oiled bowl and let it rise all day.  Then when you come home from work you simply plop the dough out onto an oiled surface, shape into loaves and let it go through the final rising and bake. 

I love the whole process as it fits into my schedule and I can provide my family with a wholesome bread.  I can mix it up and knead the dough in the morning and go about whatever I have planned for the day whether it is laundry, working a few hours at my library job or even being gone out of town for the day. 

If you have never tried this, give it a try.  You will never go back to the normal bread recipes after trying this out.  The wheat bread is delicious and so much better for you because you know what goes into the recipe.  No more reading bread labels and wondering what all those funny ingredients are. 

Sourdough Starter

2 cups flour

2 cups water (105 degrees to 115 degrees)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 pkg. dry yeast

Dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of the water.  Whisk together the remaining warm water, flour and sugar.  Add the yeast mixture to this.  Cover with a cheese cloth.  Keep this mixture on your counter in a warm spot for at least 3 days.  This is to begin the fermentation process which you will notice by bubbles forming in the mixture.  It will rise and have a yeasty sour aroma.  The liquid may separate. Stir this mixture three times a day.  After three days, store your starter in the refrigerator and make sure you cover it.  I pour mine into a one quart Mason jar and put a lid on it.  You will need to feed and use your starter at least every 10 days.  I usually use it every week when I bake bread. 

Basic Wheat Sourdough Bread

The night before you plan on baking bread, you need to feed your starter.   Pour the entire contents of the Mason jar into a glass bowl.  To this starter mixture add ½ cup sugar, 1 cup warm water and 1 ½ cups good quality white flour.    Stir well and cover with a kitchen towel and let stand in a warm place until morning, around 8 hours.  Wash the Mason jar and lid.

In the morning, divide the starter.  Pour 1 ½ cups of the starter back into the Mason jar to use the next time.  Cover and store in the refrigerator.  To the remainder of the mixture that is in the bowl add:

1/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1 ½ cups warm water

½ cup vegetable oil

5 cups flour (white or whole wheat or a mixture of the two)

Stir the sugar, salt, water and oil into the mixture.  Add the flour 1 cup at a time, mixing as you go.  Continue until you can’t stir it.  Then place the dough on a well floured table and start to knead it.  I try to knead it for around 10 minutes.  Then put the dough into an oiled bowl and let it sit until it reaches the top or doubles in size.  Depending on the temperature in your house this could take all day or 4 to 5 hours.  After it has risen, take the dough out of the bowl and put it an oiled surface.  Divide the dough into the size loaves you want.  I make mine into two loaves that I bake in well greased loaf pans.  Let the loaves rise.  This could take 2 hours or more.  Bake the loaves at 350 degrees for around 30 minutes.  

Variations:  You can add some flax seed to this along with other seeds or grains of your choosing. 

I keep one loaf out for our immediate use and freeze the other loaf.  You can use this recipe for rolls too.  

Ten Easy Ways to Conserve Water

My Crunchy Brown Lawn

Another view of our crunchy brown lawn 

and Molly our puppy.

Here I am in the midst of a drought that is expected to last until the end of October. That's another 3 months. What do you suppose my lawn will look like by then? Well, there is nothing to be done about it, since I can't make it rain. One positive is that we don't have to mow and I haven't even weeded what used to be my flower bed in about 2 months. Who wants to weed in 107 degree Farenheit heat anyway? But at least my flower bed and lawn isn't my livelihood, to a farmer who lives by the weather, these are serious times for them.

What does that mean for the rest of us? Water conservation. Yes, even though we are not under mandatory water restriction in our area, the lack of rain has brought requests to conserve water. So what am I doing to conserve water? Well for the first time I am aware of how much water I use in a single day. I am constantly amazed at how many times in a day I have wasted water. So the most important thing I have done so far is to be aware.

Second, I keep a pan in my sink to "catch" any water that doesn't fill a glass and spills out. How many times do you fill a glass and dump the excess or do you measure water out for a recipe and then you don't use it all. You would be very surprised to find the amount of water that goes down a drain each day. And of course I don't let the faucet run when I brush my teeth or wash my face.

Third, I have reduced the amount of time I spend in the shower each day. Since I wash my hair every other day, I can take a very quick shower on the days I don't wash my hair. And yes, I have succumbed to the get wet, turn off the water, lather, then turn the water back on and rinse. While I do enjoy relaxing in the shower, I am finding other ways to relax instead of standing under running water and being wasteful.

Fourth, all water from the dehumidifer is collected and then poured on any plants or shrubs that need watered or I pour the water in the birdbath.

Fifth, I choose my water levels very carefully when I do laundry. I do full loads of laundry as much as possible and I make sure that the water level meets the size of the load. I double check as I don't want to waste anything.   The next step I am considering is to save the water that spins out of the rinse or the final cycle of the washing machine.  Since this water is pretty much clean anyway, I may try to collect it and use it on my trees and bushes that need water.  I have been surprised that shrubs that we planted 3 years ago are showing signs of distress from the drought.  Since I don't want to pay the money to replace them, it is well worth finding ways to water these bushes with water that I have saved from another use.

Sixth, any water that I cook pasta in, I save. I let it cool to room temperature and then I pour it on plants in the backyard.

Seventh, as to the toilet, I use the "if it's yellow, let it mellow" rule in my master bathroom only. I don't make everyone else in the household follow this rule on the main floor bathroom. There are just some things that aren't worth fighting about.

Eighth, there is no watering of the lawn by a hose or sprinkler. The grass as you can see from the above pictures is mostly brown and crunchy. It has gone into dormancy but I fear that with this being the second year that this has happened to our yard, I honestly think we will need to re-seed the entire yard next year.

Ninth, there is no more running the water from the tap until it gets cold. Instead we keep a very large container in the refrigerator that we use for our cold drinking water. We refill it at least once a day.

Tenth, if there is a chance of rain I take my plants and set them out in the yard so they will get some rain water.  I also have an empty wading pool to catch any rain water. The rain water is collected and used to water plants the next day. It rained a little yesterday (we received 1/8th of an inch) and it rained 2 weeks ago and we received about the same amount. So even though this doesn't mean that I can collect very much rain, it is something.

These are just a few ways that I am conserving water in our household. Honestly after going through this I think I will continue to practice these conservation methods after the drought it is over. Why? Because it is the right thing to do and also because it will save us money on our water bill.