Free budgeting worksheets.

Better Budgeting offers THESE FREE BUDGETING WORKSHEETS to help you get your personal finances organized. (Also included is a link to some frugal recipes.)

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Great FREE cookbooks and more.

First, just so y'all know: My computer lost its mind yesterday morning and decided my profile no longer existed. While I was able to pull up many of my files from back-up, I was not able to restore certain things that had been "customized" like my FTP information, my e-mail accounts (Though I was able to recall saved e-mails that had been backed-up. I only lost a few weeks worth.), and any and all program settings. I spent several hours fixing it, only to have the exact same thing happen to me today. My husband is laughingly calling it "Groundhog Day." He can say that. He's not the one re-installing everything again! Heh. Anyway, it is possible that if you e-mailed me at some point before about noon yesterday and didn't hear back, that your e-mail is gone, for which I truly apologize. Please feel free to write me again.

And to return to our regularly scheduled program - reader Hope pointed me in the direction of THE UNIVERSITY OF MAINE'S CO-OP EXTENSION SITE, which is definitely one of the best extension sites I've seen. In particular, you might be interested in the following free publications:

RECIPE IDEAS FOR THRIFTY FAMILIES
SAVING MONEY WITH HOMEMADE CONVENIENCE MIXES
SODIUM CONTENT OF YOUR FOOD

WINNING WAYS TO GROCERY SHOP WITH YOUNG CHILDREN
MAKING YOUR OWN BABY FOOD

And - erm - I'm including this one, but if you've read my "How I Shop" posts, one thing you'll know, I do NOT plan my meals before shopping because it would actually cost me *more* money. Still, FYI: CUTTING FOOD COSTS


Also, though I'm not sure anyone who doesn't have kids would actually bother much with coming here to Life. On a Budget., just in case there are any readers who are single or living with a roommate/spouse/significant other - there's a short series of books just for cooking for two. (And I suppose anyone who was interested could double or triple these recipes.)

THRIFTY RECIPES: MAIN DISHES
THRIFTY RECIPES: SALADS AND SOUPS, BREADS AND DESSERTS
BUYING FOOD FOR SMALL THRIFTY FAMILIES
IDEAS FOR PLANNING THRIFTY MEALS

I encourage you to explore the site further. In the "Eating Well" category under "Food & Health" you'll find an entire section of PDFs on specific fruits and vegetables that include nutritional information and recipes. There's also a "personal finance" section, which includes: MANAGING YOUR MONEY: PLANNED AND UNPLANNED SPENDING. Not all of the files are available as free PDFs or HTML, but the majority are. Definitely worth the look.

Hope doesn't have a blog I can point you to, so if you find any of this info useful, please take a second to post a comment here to thank her for her help!


PS - Hope, thanks again from me! :)

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Just FYI - Binders on Sale

We went to the bread thrift store yesterday, because Wednesday is their big sale day. We usually go on the first Wednesday of the month when we go, but last week we were in the middle of Science Camp, so we put it off. On the way home, we stopped in at Staples because we knew they were having a school supply sale.

If you happen to live near one, you may want to check it out. They have binders marked down. They are the flexible kind - not the hard ones - but they're only 33 cents each. If you use notebooking as part of your homeschooling, you might want to consider it. There's a limit of 6 per household, but don't be afraid to ask if homeschoolers are allowed to buy more. While standing in line yesterday, I noticed a woman ahead of me holding many items that were supposed to be limited. When she got to the counter, she showed a teacher ID and they let her buy everything at the sale price. So, when I got up there, I showed my teacher ID - I have one because we homeschool under an umbrella school - and explained that I'm a homeschooling mom working through a private school. That was good enough for the clerk, so I was able to buy 10 binders at the sale price. I also got several 8 packs of pencils for a penny per pack, four bottles of 9 cent glue, and 20 brad/pocket folders for a penny each.

Unfortunately, from what I can tell on-line, the penny sales are already over as of yesterday. The binders, though, ACCORDING TO THIS will be on sale until the 14th.

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Some more money talk in the media.

THE BEST FINANCIAL ADVICE EVER - I don't necessarily agree with all of this, but there are many good points here.

SCRAPING BY ON $150,000 A YEAR - despite the title, this one is mostly about learning how to scale back and live within your means while working to build up a savings.

LIVING POOR AND LOVING IT - Good attitude about living with less. (She also wrote this: SURVIVING AND THRIVING ON 12,000 A YEAR and has a FORUM BOARD TO DISCUSS BUDGET LIVING.)

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Car care tips.

MOTOR TREND offers these simple suggestions for making sure your vehicle is running at its most fuel-efficient and possibly lower your gasoline expenses.

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Friday Five for Free (5)

If you're around my age, you may recall those old television commercials that ran when we were children where people were encouraged to send away for free information booklets from the government, and the address to mail our requests was in Pueblo, Colorado.

What you might not know, is you can still do that, only now, you can find the information on-line. No really. They even use "pueblo" in the URL. :)

Here are five booklets worth ordering, downloading, or reading on-line. (More in full post.)

1) 2007 CONSUMER ACTION HANDBOOK - "This everyday guide to being a smart shopper is chocked full of helpful tips about buying a car or home, preventing identity theft, understanding credit, resolving problems after a purchase, and much more. In the 2007 edition, you'll find new information about filing for bankruptcy, finding a lawyer, and planning a funeral, along with many other useful topics."

2) HANDS ON BANKING - "Money skills you need for life. Customized instruction in English and Spanish for four age groups, from 4th grade through adult. Adults curriculum is a valuable resource for success in personal money management, includes special sections on buying a home, investing, and starting and managing a small business. Curriculum for school-age students meets or exceeds national education standards for math, literacy, and economics. Available free to the public on CD-ROM, the Internet, and printed curriculum."

3) START SMART: MONEY MANAGEMENT FOR TEENS - discusses saving, spending, borrowing, and more.

4) TAKING THE MYSTERY OUT OF RETIREMENT PLANNING - Even though this is "designed for people who are about 10 years away for retirement" - don't let that stop you if you are younger than the target age group. Learning as much as you can about retirement planning now, no matter how far off it may actually be, can only help you in the long run.

5) SIMPLE STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING YOUR MONEY - "Be Prepared, Be Informed, Be in Charge"

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Fascinating article about price tags.

THIS ARTICLE has some interesting theories about the adverse (for consumers) effects of the "price tag only on the shelf" system that has become the norm for most of the country. The story ends with words of hope, about a possible solution, but, in the meantime, we should all be very aware of the points brought up here.

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Are you tracking your spending?

Back at the beginning of June, I encouraged you to RECORD EVERY PENNY YOU SPENT. Now that we're in July, how did June look for you? Did you have some entries in the "Money I Never Should Have Spent" column? Whatever reason you had for spending that money then, what do you think about it now? No, I'm not trying to brow-beat you here! This isn't about "Bad Mom! Off to bed without supper for you!" This is about changing your buying habits if you need to, even if it's just a little bit at a time. (More in full post.)

We are all products of our society and we are bombarded by advertising on a daily basis. It's on TV, the radio, bill boards, mail-outs, the internet - it is pretty much inescapable. Not only that, but we even have people *urging* us to spend every dime we have and then some, because, if we don't, we're not supporting our country. Huh. With that philosophy firmly entrenched, we're creating a population that, as we age, winds up needing the country to support us! If you aren't already, start thinking very carefully about every purchase you make. Watch those pennies! You're probably already tired of hearing me say this, but remember, this is all about being responsible and living within your means. It is also about planning for your own future, outside of what the government might hand you in retirement. It can be done and you can do it, even if you're currently in debt and starting from less than zero. Take it step by step and day by day and you will get there.

And keep on keeping on with your budget book and recording those purchases so you know precisely what areas you need to work on more. :)

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Budget recipes.

THIS SITE - (BETTER TIMES) offers some simple, budget recipes. There are some frugal living tips here as well, and general advice. It's a small site, but worth the look.

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I'm supposed to spend HOW much?

Have a look at THE USDA FOOD PLANS: COST OF FOOD CHART for May. (The latest figures.)

Here are my family's numbers, per month:
Thrifty Plan: $567.80
Low Cost Plan: $739.40
Moderate Plan: $920.00
Liberal Plan: $1121.30 (Oh, come on!)

Considering we only actually spend around $190 - I guess the government must think we're starving to death. And my total includes things like toilet paper and shampoo. So I'm trying to decide what to call my actual costs. Is it the Conservative Plan? (Hee.) The Yes, People Really Live Like This Plan? The Reality Plan?

This chart says "Cost of Food at Home" (emphasis added). I could see where dining out very frequently would run your bill up to over $1100. But eating strictly at home? Yikes!

And just in case you were really wondering, here's where the government thinks your food dollars are going: RECIPES AND TIPS FOR HEALTHY, THRIFTY MEALS.

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What are your financial goals?

Sometimes this seems like an obvious question, but then, if you haven't reviewed your goals recently, this might be a good time to do so. (More in full post.)

Some years back there was a television commercial that started off showing a handsome man and his elegant-looking watch. The voice-over described the watch in glowing terms and went on to tell you the staggering price it cost. Then the voice said something along the lines of, "And what does he do with this watch? He tells time."

It turned out this wasn't a watch commercial, but rather a commercial about financial planning. The voice-over broke down the numbers of how much money this watch owner wasted in buying something that served no more use than a $15 Timex, and how the money could have grown over the years to make a tidy nest egg.

I remember being extremely amused by it.

If you are facing very specific financial needs currently, such as paying off debts or simply making sure all your bills are paid on time, it can be hard sometimes to think past that point to future goals. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have at least some ideas of where you want to be in five years, ten years, and more.

Aside from college for the kids, and maybe a nice bit of traveling for yourself, there is one aspect that it is never too early to be planning for. Yes, I am speaking of retirement, but not in the "hanging out on the golf course" sense.

Americans are living longer and longer and because of that we are needing more money to support ourselves in our old age when we can no longer physically work. Not too long ago, my aunt called me to let me know we have a bit of a crisis in our own family. My grandmother has reached the age of 94. She's developed Alzheimer's and needs constant care. My aunt told me she's starting to become very concerned because my grandmother is running out of money. No one ever thought this would happen and I know, though her mental capabilities have dwindled, she would never have ever wanted to become a burden for her children, were she aware of the situation. As of right now, it looks quite likely that our entire family will need to start chipping in as much as possible to meet her monthly bills.

So, even if you have immediate goals that swallow every last dime right now, such as paying off a college loan, just take a few moments to sketch out all your financial goals and plans and even write down some things you might do to reach them. This goal list is very useful to have handy, especially on days when you might be tempted to make a questionable "splurge" purchase. You can whip it out to remind yourself of where you really want to be in your own financial future, and stop yourself from buying that way over-priced watch you didn't need anyway.

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How I shop, Part 5.

The lowdown.

I said I wanted to give a complete breakdown of one entire shopping day, and so here it is. Please note - if you were to only buy what I've bought this week alone, you wouldn't be able to make many meals. This is because I buy things over time and keep them as staples, so each week I'm only picking up some particular needs and items I find on sale. (More in full post.)

We did not go to any garage sales this week. The weather was hot and we aren't currently looking for anything in particular. We did stop by a used book store, where I found a Spanish 1 for Christian Schools textbook and teacher manual for $1 each and I picked those up. We have been listening to Spanish language CDs from the library and I figured this could give us some reinforcement.

Total: $2.13

Our first store stop was Dollar General. I bought a 6 pack of toilet paper (which we won't actually need until next week) for $1, a bag of cat food for $3, also not needed for another week or so, and a $1 stick of Suave deodorant.

Total $5.33

Next we went to Save-Rite, where I bought:
1) 1 bag of potatoes: $2.50
2) 2 lbs yellow onions: $1.25 - didn't need them right away, but this was a good price.
3) orange gelatin mix: .32 cents
4) raspberry gelatin mix: .32 cents - My daughter handed her cold on to my son and jello is one of his "comfort foods".
5) one can of no-salt added corn: .40 cents
6) one can of diced tomatoes: .50 cents
7) two cans of tomato paste: .68 cents
8) 1 bottle of BBQ sauce: $1.00 - because we'd used up the last of it in our BBQ chicken sandwiches last week; don't need it right away, but I consider it a staple to keep on hand.
9) 1 carton of oatmeal: $1.35 - my son also loves oatmeal for breakfast when he's feeling ill - this will last us a long time.
10) vegetable oil: $1.65 - don't need it currently, but was on sale

Total: $9.97

At Winn Dixie we only bought 2 bell peppers for .98 cents and a 4 lb. bag of kidney beans for $3.49 - another item that will last us a long time.

Total: $4.47

At Wal-Mart we bought:

1) 1 lb. bag of carrots: .79 cents
2) bananas (at .48 cents a pound): $1.15
3) raw spinach: $1.98
4) mayo: $1.00 (to use in a salad dressing)
5) Cajun seasoning: .50 cents (didn't need right away, but is often hard to come by at this price)
6) oregano: .50 cents
7) 12 oz bag of egg noodles: .60 cents
8) one whole chicken: $3.62
9) ham: $2.50 (marked down)
10) 1 5 lb. bag of "tortilla mix" on the clearance aisle - .50 cents. I've never tried making tortillas before, but I figure if I blow it, I only wasted 50 cents, but if I succeed, each tortilla will cost less than 2 cents.
11) large bottle of white vinegar: $1.85 (didn't need immediately, but my supply was getting a little low)
12) one bag frozen mixed veggies: .78 cents

Total: $15.77

Grand Total: $37.67

In the interest of full disclosure, my husband bought yogurt and fruit on Friday on his way home, for a total of $5.85, so he could make my son some smoothies as snacks, so to be fair, our real total for this week is: $43.52

When you combine the things we bought this week plus things we already had on hand, these are our 14 lunches and dinners for the week -

1) chef salad and cheese bread
2) roasted chicken and vegetables (onions, carrots, potatoes), steamed green beans (from a frozen pack), rolls
3) baked potatoes "stuffed" with broccoli and covered in a cheese sauce, spinach salad
4) "fake" red beans and rice w/ ham chunks (I say "fake" because I used kidney beans instead of genuine red beans), biscuits, jello
5) chicken noodle soup and garlic cheese biscuits (both at son's request.)
6) garden chili - a chili made with beans, ground beef, and veggies: some carrots, corn, bell pepper, and tomatoes - Texans you are free to groan at my calling it "chili" ;), corn bread
7) chicken enchiladas, refried beans, Spanish rice
8) ham and mashed potatoes, broccoli, rolls
9) vegetable-beef soup, garlic bread
10) chicken creole served on rice, biscuits, chocolate pudding*
11) hamburger-macaroni casserole, jello
12) Sloppy Joes, oven fries, carrot sticks with ranch dressing as a dip
13) veggie-topped pizza and garlic bread, leftover jello or pudding
14) Potatoes O'Brien and scrambled eggs. (Yes, we eat eggs for dinner sometimes, typically on Fridays if we do.)

Breakfasts are a choice of waffles, pancakes, muffins or oatmeal - with bananas, apple slices, or oranges on the side.

If you look over what I bought and compare it with what I have/will be cooked/cooking, you'll see that several ingredients I already had. For instance, I still had several containers of ground beef from last week, as well as already prepared refried beans. I also had eggs already and some iceberg lettuce. I almost never buy iceberg lettuce, but we had it from last week because of the tacos we had, so I used it up in a chef salad with ham, cheese, cucumber and carrots. We had BBQ chicken on hamburger buns last week, so I'm using the remaining 4 buns from the pack to make Sloppy Joes this week. I also didn't need any baking supplies this week. My muffins were made with leftover zucchini from last week and I had plenty of my master baking mix on hand to make waffles, pancakes, rolls and biscuits.

One other note - because of the price of milk lately, we've cut back to only one gallon every two weeks. I "stretch" it by mixing it with reconstituted powdered milk.

I don't know how helpful this information truly is, but I wanted to show specifically what one week's shopping produced.

*I make chocolate pudding using this recipe:

1 1/2 cups instant nonfat powdered milk
5 cups sugar
3 cups cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa

Mix all ingredients until they are well blended. Store in an airtight container.

To use, stir the mix in the container before measuring out 2/3 cup of the mix into a saucepan. Add 2 cups milk and cook over low heat, stirring, until mixture thickens and comes to a boil. Continue stirring for 1 minute. Remove from heat and pour into individual serving dishes. Pudding will thicken further as it cools.

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Necessity is the mother...

What would you say if I told you one year I gave everyone toilet tissue rolls for Christmas? Seriously. I did.

All right, so I didn't just walk up and hand them cardboard tubes, but they were used in the gifts I made. It was the year I learned to prepare for Christmas all year long. I hadn't previously done that. But as I said in my About Me page - I've had to learn all this stuff as I go along, and I'm still learning new things every day.

This particular year, I didn't get started on Christmas gifts until late November, something I'd always thought meant I was "ahead" because I wasn't waiting until December! Eep. Unfortunately, this had been a particularly hard year for us. Our second child was only a few months old, and a new baby obviously adds new expenses, and my husband had been out of work for almost three months. By October, he was working again, but our finances were even tighter than usual.

(More in full post.)

My gift-giving brainstorming started off with twenty dark brown paper gift bags and a bag full of toilet tissue rolls that I had been keeping because I would cover them with paper and let my then preschooler play with them like blocks. The bags were un-used, but they had advertising on one side that I needed to cover up. I decided to make pictures out of construction paper, a supply I always have on hand because I use it with my own kids and with the kids in my Sunday School classes. I did not draw anything at all. I cut everything out, piece by piece, in the color I needed and then glued them to the bags. After a little thought, I decided to use Christmas carols as a theme. So, for instance, one bag was covered with a cut-out Christmas tree and cut-out ornaments (O! Christmas Tree!) and another had Jesus in the manger. I made one bag for each adult I was giving a gift to - at the time 15 people total. As I worked on the bags, real inspiration struck. I'd already decided to invite everyone to a dinner at my house as part of their gifts. Instead of making tags for the gift bags, I wrote down the names of each carol I had used on small strips of paper. I put each strip in a toilet tissue roll and added 3 Hershey kisses from a bag I'd bought to make my husband's favorite chocolate pie on Thanksgiving. I covered the tubes with tissue paper and tied them on the ends so that they looked very much like ENGLISH PARTY CRACKERS - of course mine wouldn't actually "pop" when you opened them. For each tube I made, I took a plain white mailing label, drew little Christmas ivy and berry designs on it, wrote the recipient's name and stuck it to the tube.

For actual gifts, I made all the men spicy hot pecans and the ladies got sugar almonds. Because this was the year my daughter was born, I had lots of recent pictures of my friends and family with my kids. I picked one good picture of each person and framed them with inexpensive frames designed to be used as Christmas tree ornaments. Finally, I made everyone my "famous" Chocolate-Peanut Butter balls, a candy much like Reese's, but with coconut and a few other ingredients. I put all the nuts and the candy in bell jars I'd bought at a garage sale. (I added red gingham fabric tops and tied them with green bows.) Each bag got a jar of nuts, a jar of candy, and a picture ornament. I topped each bag with some colored tissue paper I bought just for this - using one color per bag to match the construction paper design. They actually looked quite pretty and festive, all lined up.

The night of my dinner party, I used the "crackers" as place setters. After we'd eaten, I told everyone to open their crackers. They then all had to go to the Christmas tree in our den and figure out which gift bag was theirs, based on the song titles. Someone - not me! - then suggested that each person, on finding his/her bag - actually had to sing part of their carol. Somehow that turned into a full hour of singing by everyone, followed by cups of coffee or hot cocoa and my husband reading from a Christmas story book. (That was for our kids, but everyone sat around listening.)

Later, several of my guests told me this had been one of the most fun and memorable Christmas dinners they'd ever been to. In fact, every so often, someone STILL mentions it. "You remember that year you made those Christmas song bags...."

Necessity is the mother of invention, but I think it's also the mother of creativity and ingenuity. If I'd had more than about $20 to spend on gifts that year (outside of the dinner food money), I really doubt I would've even considered using toilet tissue rolls in my gift-giving.

I once read a book by a supposedly frugal author who made it a point to distinguish between "frugal" - shop at sales! and "cheap" - recycle envelopes. Her time, she explained, was worth more than that penny she would've saved by reusing an envelope. (And is apparently worth more than the environment, too, since she couldn't be bothered to not send something directly to the landfills.)

Cheap, mind you, is a terrible, terrible, shameful thing to be. I'm sure this woman would be horrified by the idea of using toilet tissue rolls in gifts. And yet, because my definition of "cheap" clearly doesn't mirror hers, I was able to devise something that turned out wonderful just with a bit of inspiration and a lot of determination.

You are NOT being cheap when you are creative with things you have. You are NOT being cheap when you re-use something and save it, at least for now, from the garbage heap. (And not only are you preventing it from going into the trash, you aren't buying something new to become more trash later.) You are NOT being cheap when you count your pennies. You are being responsible with the money you have.

A cheap person is one who hordes his wealth and property to himself, someone who readily takes, but never gives.

If you find yourself in a situation where you want to give someone a gift, but you have no money at all to spend, then give your time. This is not cheap, either. In fact, really, it is the most valuable thing you could ever give. I have cleaned a friend's house after the birth of her third child, mowed and weeded someone's yard, and even organized a family member's garage as gifts before and I promise you they appreciated it way more than they would've some Hallmark store trinket.

Nowadays, I spend all year working on Christmas gifts, as I explained in a previous post, and I've found I'm easily able to keep things in the same price range as I did for that crazy song-bag year. I still have to get creative, but though you may shake your head as you read this: being creative with things is easier than you might think. I am not an artist/imaginative type by nature. I'm a logical/organized type. I'm not the dreamer - I'm the stick-in-the-mud, let's-get-it-done kind of person. I don't look at a beautiful lake setting and think, "I should paint that!" I think, "Wow. Bet there are a lot of mosquitoes there." I get my ideas from everywhere - things I see on TV or the internet, magazines I'll skim through at the library, things I see for sale, and then I figure out how can I recreate something like that with the money and items I have? Or sometimes, as in the case of the toilet tissue rolls, the ideas simply flow out from another idea.

I encourage you to get creative, even if you're the list-writing, schedule-making, no-nonsense type like I am - in fact especially so in that case! - and start looking at things you might have laying around your house to see what they can inspire in you. Not just in gift-giving, but in any and all aspects of your life.

And remember, again, you aren't being cheap! Don't let the everything-must-be-new-and-brand-name, consumer-driven mentality that pervades our culture ever make you think so!

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How I shop, Part 4.

It's entirely likely this post should be titled "What I do when I get home from shopping." but as it follows along with the other posts, I figured I should stay in the same title-category. Now that you know where I go and what I buy, I thought I'd explain what I do with it. But first, I want to finally address the shopping only in one store issue. (More in full post.)

We lived for awhile in an area with only one store nearby and it wasn't at all feasible for us to drive the additional 19 miles each way once a week to visit other stores. This meant we had to rely on one grocery store for most of our needs. Once a month we did make the longer drive, and we included trips to a bread thrift store and a Goodwill store with it. For regular weekly shopping, though, we actually went to our local store 2 or 3 times in the same week. (Usually 2 of those trips would be my husband stopping there on his way home from work, to avoid using gas unnecessarily.) We did this because while advertised sale prices typically last for a full week, mark-down prices could happen any time. My husband would run in and check the meat aisle for anything marked down and look for any other items he could find, in the produce section and also in the back of the store where the clearance mark-downs are left. These mark-downs might include anything from bakery goods - like hamburger buns; canned goods - dented is fine! Really. You just need to worry about cans that have puffed out; dried herbs and spices; and sometimes non-food items like cough medicine. Because we were there so often, we actually became well acquainted with several of the employees and they were often kind enough to tell us as soon as they saw us about any unadvertised specials. Other than that, we followed the same patterns we do now. We shopped for loss-leaders and built our menus around any good deals we could find.

When we go shopping on Saturdays, between the garage sale/thrift store stops and multiple grocery store visits, we don't get home until lunch and we are definitely hungry! (I should note - we ALWAYS leave the house with bottles of water - not the one-time use only kind; washable bottles refilled from our refrigerator - and some type of snack, such as cookies or muffins. This is to give us a boost at around 10:30 when we might start feeling some hunger pangs and prevent us from wasting money on packaged snacks or junk food.) When we get home, we put the groceries away quickly and have lunch. Lunch might be something that's been simmering in the Crockpot or something quick and easy to fix, such as a salad and microwave baked potatoes.

After lunch, my work begins. First, I have to decide our menu for the week. Yes, I really do this - after we've been shopping. Hee. Obviously, I already have the meals in mind, but now I have to figure out which meal we'll be eating when. I use a simple chart: FOUND HERE to work out our meals. As I mentioned in my MAKING MIXES post, I do a lot of baking on Sundays to cover breakfasts for the week. So typically, my breakfast boxes on the chart simply say "choice" unless I'm preparing something different, like eggs. In the "Snacks" category, I write down things that I know need to be eaten up that week. For instance, if I've got homemade jam I want to make sure is used up, I write that down so I can remember to tell the kids to have toast and jam at least once that week. Lunches and dinners are determined mostly by order in which perishables should be consumed and anything that will have an impact on eating time - like knowing we'll be getting home just before dinner on a certain day because of a field trip.

The next thing I need to determine is what meats need to be cooked immediately. The best way to explain that is by example. This Saturday I purchased 5 lbs of ground beef. It had a sell-by date of the 17th, and so was marked down from over $9 to just over $6. This means, though, that I didn't want to leave it sitting uncooked in my refrigerator all week. Saturday afternoon I made a ground-beef "starter" mix. I put it in a bowl and added one large chopped onion (or about two cups), 1 chopped bell pepper, 3 grated carrots, 4 pressed gloves of garlic, 2 stalks of finely chopped celery and 1 cup of bread crumbs (made by giving a slice of bread a whirl in the blender.) I browned this entire mix in batches and then divided it among 7 different containers. Three of these containers went into the freezer to be used another week and the other 4 went into the refrigerator. One container was used to make the tacos for my daughter's birthday. I mixed it with a can of petite diced tomatoes and some HOMEMADE TACO SEASONING MIX (This recipe is very similar to mine except I don't use the salt or cayenne pepper.) This afternoon, I used some more of the meat mix, as well as some of my pinto bean mix* - a mix that can be used in several recipes, including refried beans - to make chili for lunch. I will also be using the mix in a vegetable beef soup, and the other container will become shepherd's pie.

I also bought a family pack of chicken thighs that was marked down for quick sale, so while I was working on my beef mix, I cooked them in my Crockpot. (Just threw them in with some chopped onion, some dried herbs and a little bit of water.) The chicken was divided into 4 containers and this week will be: Chicken and rice soup, made with a broth from boiling down the bones I kept after picking off most of the chicken; BBQ chicken on a bun - I heat the chicken with some BBQ sauce and serve it on hamburger buns; creamed chicken and peas on potato pancakes, and chicken stir fry. (Because the chicken is already cooked, I stir fry the veggies and throw the chicken in at the last minute just to heat it.)

Normally, I would've also made my pinto-bean mix on Saturday, but as I was busy with also preparing some things for Father's Day, I put that off until Monday afternoon.

I had to buy onions this week, as we were running low, so I also took the time to chop all of them and put them in a couple of freezer containers. This works great. On busy nights, I just have to scoop out whatever I need and add them to my recipes. I don't even thaw them. They cook just fine as is.

I guess you can see what I mean about using lots of mixes! In addition to the ones I've already mentioned here, I also used a Spanish Rice mix last night to serve with our tacos. Sometimes, I think the mixes are just a psychological advantage. For instance, I could probably assemble the ingredients for the taco seasoning mix right as I'm making tacos without really adding much prep-time, but somehow knowing even that one little step is taken care of makes the cooking just seem easier. On the other hand, they really can be advantageous - having my ground beef already browned and ready to go knocks several minutes off prep time and really speeds things up in the evening when I'm getting dinner together. It also allows me to take advantage of bulk item prices when they're a good deal. I bought a 4 lb. bag of pinto beans this week, because I knew I could use them up in my mix and the per pound price was significantly less than the cost of a single pound bag.


*Pinto Bean Mix

This is very simple. I take 2 lbs of dried beans (washed and picked over) and put them in a pot of water. I bring them to boil for two minutes, remove from heat and cover and let stand for an hour. I drain them and wash them in a colander then put them back in the pot. I add 1 large or 2 medium chopped onions (2 cups from my freezer container), two pressed gloves of garlic, and 3 tablespoons of cajun seasoning. I cover this with water and bring back to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for a few hours. That's it. Once they're cooked and soft, I divide the mix among 5 containers and freeze whatever I won't be using that week.

To make refried beans, I mash 1 container of the beans with a potato masher, adding a little water to get the consistency I like and mix in 1/2 cup salsa. Probably that's some kind of terrible blow to real Mexican cooking, but that's how my family likes them. :)

Next week I'll give you a complete breakdown of every item I purchase this coming Saturday and where it will be used.

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What's your budget view-point?

THIS ARTICLE is totally worth the read. There's plenty of food for thought there, especially in the possible causes section for why so many kids think they'll have 6-figure incomes when they join the work-world.

A long time ago I read something somewhere (I wish I could remember where, to give proper credit. If you recognize this, please let me know!) in which a woman talked about how perspective is everything. Apparently her husband had made frequent mention of growing up "poor", in a negative way, and so she was shocked when she finally learned that his family had lived on about the same income that hers had. She went on to explain that she'd never once thought that she was poor growing up. Her family had even made regular donations to a food bank and surely, as she'd believed as a child, if they were donating to the poor, they couldn't possibly be poor themselves.

Two families. Two totally different viewpoints. And two totally different outcomes. In the one household, the child grew up feeling deprived, something that can very often lead to huge financial problems in adulthood - debt-creating overspending to compensate for a "miserable" childhood. In the other, clearly, the blessings of what they did have were stressed, as well as the need to help those less fortunate, leading to a woman who grew up believing she'd been lucky as a child.

There are two very distinct ways of going about a frugal lifestyle. You can do it with a "woe-is-me" attitude or a "we are blessed" attitude. (More in full post.)

The biggest problem with the "woe-is-me" perspective is you are much, much more likely to get yourself into financial jams. You'll blow your food budget on a $25 pizza order delivered to your house because you're feeling like you've earned it and you've been deprived of this pleasure, rather than having the fun of making a pizza at home, for a fraction of that cost, and feeling grateful that you're able to do so. Make mistakes like this too often, and you'll find yourself in debt and struggling to climb out of a seemingly ever-deepening hole.

I do understand this can be hard. As that article says, here in America we are constantly being bombarded with images of the so-called "good life" and those images are always filled with fancy homes and expensive cars. Success in our society is not marked by a person who lives quietly and well, who has good friends and a great family, who honors God and is genuinely happy. Success is measured by bank accounts. Is it any wonder why people get so caught up in the race to have more, more, more?

Then there are those who openly criticize anyone who embraces frugalness. These people, frankly, astonish me. Why on earth someone would think you are being cruel to your child by not taking him to McDonald's for a "treat" is beyond me! If it means you are using money that should be used elsewhere, you are only being financially irresponsible. And furthermore, it's not like you're doing your child any favors anyway - feeding him a meal that's genuinely bad for him. What kind of treat is that? Unfortunately, these critics can be quite vocal and rude, and sadly, undermine the efforts of a parent who does want to take control of her/his finances, by making her/him feel somehow inadequate as a mom or dad.

There are way too many people in this world who really are truly poor. People who are homeless and hungry. But are you one of them? Do you spend a little too much time bemoaning what you don't have, rather than being grateful for what you do? Are you, however unwittingly, handing the "woe-is-me" attitude down to your children? You might want to try a little thanksgiving.

No, don't go out and buy a turkey and some cranberry sauce! What I mean is, don't wait for November. Make a list now of all your blessings. I mean this literally. Take out a piece of paper and write down everything you have for which you are thankful, both tangible, like a roof over your head, and intangible, like the love of your friends, family and spouse. Tape this list somewhere that you'll see it every day, like your bathroom mirror. Thank God daily for these things and keep them foremost in your mind. When you start to focus wholly on your blessings, the other things quickly lose their importance. A joyful hug from your son or daughter is worth a thousand diamond necklaces, and if your attitude is one of happiness and thankfulness, your children will pick up on it and mirror it in their own lives.

Random ways to "gift" yourself any time you feel you might be slipping into the "woe-is-me" trap for a moment:

1. Read your Blessings List. Out loud. To the dog if no one else is around to listen.

2. Make some artwork. Collect cards, drawings, and pictures your children have made for you, or if they're young, ask them to make you something new. Select a few and frame them, or make a larger, single collage. You don't need expensive frames. You can find inexpensive ones at garage sales and dollar stores, or make them yourself. Hang your artwork proudly. I promise you, in twenty years when your kids are grown and gone, this art will mean much, much more to you than any "real" paintings or prints you might have in your home.

3. Go to the library. A friend of mine once told me any time she feels the "shopping bug" biting, she makes a trip to the local library. Once she's checked out some books and music CDs and a few movies, she feels just as good as she used to when she'd go on a credit-card rampage at the mall. Sure, she eventually has to give these things back, but she's done with it all by then anyway and she's satisfied the "must have something new" craving that hit her.

4. Go garage sale shopping. Plan to buy something - any one thing you want - as long as it doesn't cost more than $1. Really shop around with that one dollar and by the time you make your choice, you'll feel absurdly pleased with your "splurge" even though you didn't just drop a fortune.

5. Take a day off. There will likely be some things you have to do, regardless, especially if you have very young children, but do as little as possible. After breakfast, put dinner in the Crock-Pot (and if you don't have one of those - get one!) so that you won't be working in the kitchen in the evening. Let the kids off from school work and instead designate the day as "free reading". Or, if you're a homeschooler who takes summer break, tell the kids that they're to amuse themselves for the day, with books or board games or anything else that requires little parental supervision. Relax as much as you can. Read a book. Work on a craft project. Sit outside in the sun. Consider it a vacation, even though you aren't going anywhere and use the day to recharge.

Even if you've made some really bad money decisions before, even if you're already in that debt-hole and now trying to get out, no matter how slow the going, it is not too late! You really can change your outlook and attitude and work to make sure your children don't grow up thinking nothing less than $100,000 a year is acceptable.

This really is all about remembering what the important things in life are, and money? Isn't one of them.

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How I shop, Part 3.

I mentioned in THE PART 2 SHOPPING POST that I do some of my meal planning while standing in the store. I know this is contradictory to what most "budget advisers" usually recommend. I do this, though, because I don't know until I get there just what meat I'll be buying. (More in full post.)

It's not until after I've decided on my meat purchases that I can figure out exactly what we'll be eating. Generally, this is actually a simple process, despite how it might sound. I cook using a combination of basic staples and HOMEMADE MIXES. So after I know what meat I'm buying, usually there are only some "special" ingredients I need to pick up, as well as restocking any staples that are low. I keep a piece of paper stuck to the fridge and another on the inside of the pantry door. All week I write down things I realize are running low so that I know to purchase them while shopping. This usually isn't that much, since I also stock up on things when on sale, but occasionally I'll go a stretch of time where I don't find something on sale, like perhaps olive oil or rice, and I'll need to pick some up because we're running out of it.

"Special" ingredients just means something like zucchini or dried kidney beans; something I don't keep on hand but would need to complete the meals, not anything very expensive or "gourmet".

I will start checking for the special ingredients and the staples in the first store we visit and if the prices are good there, I go ahead and buy them; otherwise I wait to see the other stores.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a frozen turkey breast for $2.50. I cooked it in the gravy it came with and that night I served hot open-faced sandwiches (turkey slices on bread slices with caramelized onions and the gravy), oven fries, steamed carrots, and peaches. A couple of days later, at lunch, we had a spinach salad with diced turkey, a bit of bacon, some homemade croutons, and sliced carrots, served with some garlic biscuits. We also had a night where dinner was turkey pot pie and apple slices. By deciding in the store that these were the meals I would make with my turkey, I knew I needed to pick up fresh spinach, peaches, bacon, and some frozen peas (for the pot pie.) I already had other ingredients/foods, like the apples. I always buy potatoes, onions and carrots if I'm low - I consider these staples. And because I was buying the bacon and spinach, I knew I'd need to come up with something else to make with it, so we had a mock-quiche* that week, too. Because I decided to make the quiche, I had to pick up some swiss cheese. This was too expensive at store number one, but at a good price at store 2. Because I was buying swiss cheese, I also decided to make a two-cheese (also used cheddar, which I keep on hand) scalloped potatoes dish and I served that with some sausage, which also happened to be on sale that week. I'd already figured I'd serve some sort of potato dish with the sausage, so once I decided upon the quiche, I knew just what potato dish I'd want to make.

Note - the turkey pot pie required a sauce and crust, and the scalloped potatoes had a sauce, all of which were made from some of the mixes I keep on hand, so I didn't need to buy anything extra for that.

I have a feeling this sounds utterly insane! But I hope this is making at least some sense. The point is, I first determine the meat. Then I figure out what we'll be eating with that meat, then I make sure whatever I buy for the meat can be used up - that I'm not buying something I'll never use again. Sometimes it may be that I freeze something for use later, but I will definitely use it.

I think you can see that my meals are pretty simple. We don't eat the exact same thing every week - there's no Meatloaf Monday or Spaghetti Thursday - and I do make a variety of casseroles and soups to use up ingredients, but what I don't do is cook anything hugely fancy or costly or full of one-time-use only ingredients.

I'm assuming this will be more understandable if I really break down an entire shopping trip and all the ingredients, so that will be my next shopping post.

(Also - I mentioned shopping in only one store before, and I haven't forgotten that. I will get to it soon.)

*mock-quiche: I brought this up once before, but mock-quiche for us is some variation of what Bisquick calls IMPOSSIBLY EASY PIES. I vary the ingredients by what I have on hand and use my own "master biscuit mix" to make these.

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How I shop, Side Bar.

I wanted to talk more about purchases other than meat at the grocery store, when I remembered that I only casually mentioned bread thrift stores somewhere and I thought I'd better go into a little detail about that before I continue with the rest of the shopping posts, or I'm likely to forget about it altogether. (More in full post.)

We live within about 20 minutes drive from two bread thrift stores. One of them, on Wednesdays, has .65 cents for everything in the store, including the "nice" bread - meaning the whole grains and multi-grains and breads that are *not* Wonderbread. Well, they have that, too, but we don't buy it. Once every two months, we go to the thrift store and buy 8 loaves of bread. This costs a little under five and a half dollars. Because we buy at least $5 worth, we are also allowed to select something off the "free" rack. From there we will get something like hoagie rolls (for meatball sandwiches - yum!) or tortillas or occasionally we'll choose the dinner rolls. As I've mentioned before, I bake everything else. Muffins, cakes, sweet breads, biscuits, and so on. It may very well be that I could purchase all the ingredients to bake multi-grain bread at home cheaper than the thrift store, but I'm not entirely sure where I'd work that into my schedule if I did! I decided awhile ago that spending .65 cents a week on bread would fit into our budget. We actually don't eat that many sandwiches, but bread slices are eaten frequently at snack time - toasted and served with apple butter or homemade jam and a glass of milk, or served with peanut butter, fresh fruit, and some lemonade. I will also sometimes, at the request of my children, make a batch of French toast.

We freeze all but one loaf of the bread when we bring it home. I keep stackable baking racks on my counter all the time. On any given day you will find (in baggies) some muffins, cookies and possibly dinner rolls on the lower rack, and on the upper rack sits the loaf of bread. When one runs out, I pull another from the freezer. They seem to thaw just fine in this way, sitting on the rack; we never have "mushy" bread.

I wanted to mention all this so that later when I've finished my actual shopping posts and then break down a shopping trip by posting everything I've bought and how much it cost, you won't be confused by the lack of bread/grains.

Oh, and because I mentioned lemonade, here's my recipe:

LEMONADE
1 1/2 cups sugar (Increase by 1/4 cup if you like more sweet, less tart.)
8 cups water
1 1/2 cups lemon juice - fresh squeezed.

In a saucepan, combine sugar and 1 cup water. Bring to boil and stir to dissolve sugar. Allow to cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until chilled (about 4 hours). Remove seeds from lemon juice, but leave pulp. In pitcher, stir together chilled syrup, lemon juice, and remaining 7 cups water.

Generally, it takes me about 6 lemons to get the 1 1/2 cups juice. Every so often I'll find lemons on sale for 10 for a $1.00.

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How I shop, Part 2.

That meat thing:

Quick sidebar before I get started on my meat shopping - I wanted to point you in this direction: FEEDING A FAMILY OF FOUR FOR UNDER $200 A MONTH The lady who authored this book gives a brief history of her own situation and goes on to describe how she keeps her costs low. She doesn't do all the same things I do (or vice versa) so I perhaps you will find things both on my blog and in her ebook that can help you reduce your own bills. In particular, we differ greatly on our meat purchases, so - pardon the horrible pun - I think her book is great "food for thought."

Before we go shopping in the morning, we get out our cooler and fill it with ice. (I make ice during the week and put it in plastic grocery bags in the freezer to save specifically for this purpose.) We first do our "other" shopping - such as thrift stores or garage sales. Then we get to the actual grocery shopping. We start at the farthest store we go to. I go straight to the meat section to see if anything is marked down. I do sometimes find great unadvertised sales, but mostly what I'm looking for is the things that are reduced for "quick sales." And - and this is important because I suppose it involves being a bit, *ahem*, brazen, something I know few people like being! - I will also pick out meat a day or two from it's sell-buy date and take it to the front/service counter and ask for a discount. You'd be surprised how often the manager is willing to do a quick mark-down. I guess some people might think this is akin to begging or something, but I consider it shrewd bargaining. After all, if no one else comes along to buy it within the next 48 hours, the store will have to throw it away. It's a good situation for us; we get the discount, and for them; they get the sale, even if it is at a reduction. Once I have one or two different meats - perhaps some ground beef and a whole chicken or some smoked sausage and a pack of chicken thighs, I'll start planning meals beyond my loss-leader meals.

I know this is tricky. You might be thinking - how can I plan the meals, standing in the grocery store? How will I know the other ingredients that I need? The answer to that requires its own post, the explanation is so long, but in a nutshell, this is where cooking everything from scratch using basic homemade mixes and staple ingredients come in. Once I finish all my shopping posts - I'll go into much more detail there.

After I've decided on some meals, I'll quickly cruise the rest of the store, to pick up any of their loss-leader items and to purchase anything else I stumble across that's a very good deal, also checking prices on any necessary items I might need to complete the meals I'm planning. If the prices are good, I'll purchase them there. If not, I'll wait for the next store.

We leave store number one, put our meat in the cooler, and head over to store number 2, where I repeat the process, though sometimes I won't find anything we want at this one.

Then we continue on to store number 3. Here I will finish out our shopping. If, on occasion, it turns out I passed something up at a previous store that I should have purchased because it was a better price, I come up with a substitution or different meal plan. This really doesn't happen much at all to me anymore, just because I'm so familiar with these stores' prices in general, but, if this isn't something you're used to doing, keeping a price book like I MENTIONED IN MY FIRST SHOPPING POST can help you here.

Meat is our single biggest price item, but we still don't spend more than around $15 a week on it. If you read my $3.50 CHICKEN POST, you'll already have a good idea of how I use meat in our meals. One whole chicken is four meals for us, not one. Have you ever read a diet/nutritionist's description of how much meat is one serving? I've seen it described as anything from "the size of a small fist" to "the size of a deck of cards". We Americans and our huge portions! We've become so accustomed to eating much more than that. And that can contribute to both budget woes and weight problems!

For us, one $2 pound of sausage is two meals. Ground beef is stretched with bread crumbs, milk, onions, and seasoning, then browned in batches or made into meatballs. I get 5 meals from 2 pounds of ground beef.

We rarely eat pork chops because I can't typically get enough meals out of them. We do eat fish when it is on sale. I will every-so-often buy a beef roast, if I can get it drastically reduced, and the same for ham.

Turkey deserves a special mention. When turkeys drop in price to under twenty cents a pound, right before Thanksgiving, I buy three of the largest turkeys I can find. I freeze two for spring & summer time and cook the other that week, and I get a dozen or more meals out of each. (FYI - Turkeys can be frozen for a LONG time; however, most people say after a year the quality suffers. I've never had a turkey frozen for more than about 8 months, so I can't give any personal testimony to that.)

So, when I get home with my "almost expired" meat, I do one of two things. I will either freeze it for use later or I will cook it on the spot, as in the case of the ground beef. I brown it and/or make the meatballs and keep it in either the freezer or refrigerator, to be added to whatever recipes I've planned.

Also, and this is an important note, too, we do not eat meat with every lunch and dinner. We have some "vegetarian" dishes we eat as well.

My next shopping post, I'll talk more about the other ingredients I purchase and then talk about shopping in one store, as we had to do for about a year when we were living in an outlying area with only one grocery store nearby.

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Oh, those garage sales.

I have seen some wacky things on "sale" at garage sales - things that make me wonder not just what the original purchaser was thinking when he/she bought them, but what on earth the creators or manufactures of said items had going on in their heads as well. :)

Shopping at a garage sale is pretty much a treasure hunt. You can go to seventeen different sales and come up empty handed, but then, on the 18th, you find something that truly makes your efforts worthwhile.

This morning we only went to 2 garage sales, before doing our grocery shopping, because my daughter had a party to attend this afternoon and we needed to get home with enough time for her to change clothes and get to her friend's house.

At the first garage sale we found nothing we needed, though the family was selling some very nice baby items that I'm sure were snapped up quickly. At the second, we hit a mini-bonanza in that we were able to buy a brown bag full of summer clothes for my son - t-shirts and shorts - all for $3. I've already got them in the wash.

My daughter went upstairs to change for the party and when she returned, she was dressed in white denim capri pants which have a small floral design on one leg, embroidered in gold tones; a white spaghetti-strap top, and a gold lace over-shirt. (Hard to explain, exactly - but it looks like a short sleeve jacket that ties with a single bow in front; made from a lace material.) She'd pulled her hair back with a tan and gold crocheted head-scarf I made her some time ago and added two bracelets and a necklace we made together from small wooden beads and tiny shells. She finished the outfit with a pair of white flip-flops and white sunglasses.

She looked adorable.

I do have a point. I think people might believe children who are dressed exclusively in garage sale and occasional thrift store finds must look "poor" and "deprived." This is simply not the case. If you are willing to hunt and hunt and hunt, you will come up with nice things for your children. (And yourself.) It just takes longer than making one stop at the local Limited Too or Old Navy.

My daughter's outfit cost:

$1.00 for the pants. More than I wanted to spend, but they are spotless and of good quality. I didn't pay for the white shirt. I got it for free from a woman in our homeschool support group who has a daughter older than mine. The lacy blouse was .50 cents at the same garage sale as the pants. The materials to make her head bandanna and jewelry are a little hard to estimate, but I would say around $3. Her flip-flops I did buy new - out of the Dollar Spot at Target. Her sunglasses were a gift last summer.

For less than $6, my daughter walked out of here looking like a movie star on her way to the beach.

So brave the garage sales if you don't already. Yes, people really do sell velvet Elvis paintings and avocado green floor lamps. It's the nature of the beast. But the more sales you hit (and, naturally, the earlier in the day the better), the more fabulous "treasures" you will find.

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Who ya gonna call?

I am very ambivalent about cell phones. Are they a necessity? Well, no. Obviously the human race lived a long time without them. On the flip side, there are plenty of good reasons to own one, not the least of which is the fact that because "everyone" has cell phones, it's becoming less and less common to locate a pay phone if you find yourself in need of one.

Awhile back, we finally decided to add a cell phone to our monthly expenses. We explored a lot of options with minute plans and free weekends and contracts and on and on. In the end, we went with NET 10 - a prepaid phone. We bought the least expensive phone they had, for $20. We "recharge" it monthly for $15. The minutes do carry over. In fact, they keep carrying over to the point that now we have close to 1500 minutes on our phone! Even though there are phone plans (contracts) where the per-minute charge works out to less than 10 cents a minute, no one in our area offered a contract for less than $20 a month, so this is the absolute cheapest way we can maintain a phone.

If you currently have a cell phone and are paying for a more expensive contract, or want to get a cell phone, I do encourage you to check out Net 10 as a possibility. It might not be the best for you, especially if you use your phone for more than "emergency" purposes, but it could save you money over what the "other guys" offer.

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