This Week

Well, my three year old has discovered computer games. Kinda cute, but sharing the computer, not so much.

This week:

 I made the yummiest apple pie (and most beautiful I might add) from the apples off our tree:

On apple pie night we made twice baked potatoes from our home-grown potatoes and my kids and I fought over the zucchini that Kris' aunt gave us from her garden. It's a little ridiculous at the dinner table to be counting out chunks of zucchini to make sure it's even. It was much more beneficial for me when my kids couldn't count.

I also made granola. It's so delicious there may need to be an intervention.

Speaking of intervention...

I maybe shouldn't have left my children unsupervised with a jar of prunes.

 Good times.

Also this week, need to take away the debit cards. Seriously. Kris and I totally know better. We didn't spend anything we didn't already have, but honestly could be using it much more wisely.

Friday we went to the *cough* way overpriced *cough* circus. It was fun (insert sarcastic tone). Ok, it was fine. Just not worth $30 to sit OUTSIDE for 2 hours. Honestly, who schedules an outdoor event like that in Idaho in October. And what kind of mom wouldn't realize it could possibly be outdoors and not have her children dress appropriately?! What?! It wasn't me!

Subject change.

I got my grocery cash on Friday, and still haven't had the chance to do my grocery shopping. But, the list is made and I'm ready to go first thing tomorrow morning.

With $20 less than normal!

It's a great week to try it. We're pretty stocked up with all this crazy free food that God keeps blessing us with. I don't understand it all, except that maybe God is honoring my committment to spend more wisely. He's so good to us!

I'll let you know how it goes!

Hello Old Friends!

I was so happy to come home the other day and find Kris putting in my washer and dryer! It's been a long time, and boy have I missed them!

These babies were our very first large cash purchase after we were coming out of a seriously difficult financial time. It had been about 18 months since we decided to trust God with our money needs instead of using our credit cards. We were in the middle of Financial Peace University and had learned about using cash to make purchases. I sent Kris and Josiah to the store with several $100 bills in their pockets, and they came back with these lovelies!

Fast forward a few short months and they were put in storage while we moved and found a house. Then when we bought this house it had a washer and dryer already hooked up, so we've been using those. They were a nice set, but nothing like these.

And now we get to sell the set that came with the house and pocket that money!

I will be spending much less time doing laundry now, which leaves more time to make my newest favorite recipe:

Bagels!

Yesterday my son was begging me to take him to the bagel bakery in town, but I really didn't want to spend the money. Finally I looked up a recipe and decided to make my own! They were so easy and fun to make. And so, so, so delicious!

I think if I make up a double batch every week the kids can use these for their breakfasts or even their sack lunches for school.

One delicious step closer to a smaller grocery budget! Hooray!

I like free food

It's been a strange week at our house. I can't seem to keep my days straight between kids staying home sick, no school on Thursday and Friday, and spending a day sick in bed myself. We've also got a big decision weighing over us this week. As well as a birthday to celebrate.

 Happy Birthday Sweetheart! :)

We have managed to do a little food preservation this week though. And for me, not a whole lot else.

Kris put loads of pears in the dehydrator. We were given a large bin of homegrown pears last weekend. Yum. Pears are in my top five favorite fruits. My family loves them dried, we have to hide them so the kids save some for us!

We filled the dehydrator twice and it's given us about 6 jars full. Yes, I realize that's only five jars. Like I said, we really love dried pears.

We also had loads of free peaches. Yet another fruit on my top five list. Possibly number one. I made them into peach butter and peach jalapeno jam (with jalapenos from our garden). So. Good.

 I was supposed to use some of these as gifts.

That may or may not happen.

Back to School

Today I did the back to school clothes shopping. A little late, I know. I just have a hard time buying jeans and sweatshirts when it's 100 degrees outside. Not that waiting until October 1st helped that much. It was something crazy like 90 degrees today. That wasn't a complaint, in case you were wondering.

Anyway, I figured the weather is bound to change sometime soon and my boys were in serious need of warmer clothes. I didn't do much searching ahead of time for the good deals. I did have a coupon for $10 off a purchase of $40 at Shopko that expired today. I always buy all the boys' jeans at Shopko because they replace them for free when they get holes in them, so I headed there. Well, not anymore! I brought some in today and they said they stopped doing it! I guess they lost a customer because I headed straight to Sears and bought the jeans there. They still do the replacement thing.

I got 6 pairs of jeans at Sears and then headed for Fred Meyer where I had another coupon. It was the rewards coupon that I got from the last quarter rewards. I like to save them up and use them in combination with their other coupons. It's awesome that they let you do that!

 I am not really into the whole coupon thing. I have some friends that are amazing at it and I really admire that. It's just not for me. I do use them sometimes though, and it's nice! Today I used my 25% off kids apparel combined with a 15% off clothing. They also had their clearance on an extra 60% off, so I got some good deals there too. Oh, and they had a coupon for socks.

All in all I felt like I got some good deals.

Here's what we got:

For Josiah we got 4 pairs of jeans, 3 long sleeve shirts, 2 hoodies, and a package of socks

Total: $106.56

For Kristian we got 2 pairs of jeans, 2 long sleeve shirts, and a hoodie

Total: $74.46

For Marley we got 4 shirts, 3 leggings, 2 skirts, 1 dress, and a pack of socks

Total: $41.52

With coupons and clearance I saved $84.29 at Fred Meyer and more at Sears I just haven't taken the time to figure that one out yet.

I think even when I don't take a lot of time, I can still find some great deals and stretch our dollars.

God is good!



Here we go!

I know all you readers (all 4 of you ha!) are dying to know what my new project is that I mentioned the other day! Ok maybe not. I like to pretend.

Well, I've been excited all week to share it! It's a project that has been in the works for a couple months now, and I have kind of already started.

First the backstory. Two years ago I started learning about food and it's health benefits as well as the issues with a lot of processed junk out there. I immediately jumped into feeding myself and my family differently. We learned pretty quickly that our current grocery budget could not handle the mass amounts of produce and organic products that I was purchasing. So we increased it from $300 a month to $500 a month. That's going fine actually, and I still use that amount.

A few months ago I was in the middle of tending my first vegetable garden and I was learning more about growing our own food. Along with that I started reading articles about the cost of food and how to feed your family on less by growing food, shopping farmer's markets, and learning food preservation techniques. I started wondering if I could bring my grocery budget down to half the amount while still eating healthy and natural foods. I'm pretty sure I could do it by feeding my family boxed dinners and such, but that's cheating.

I had to think about this one for a long time. That's a BIG difference. But hey, I love a good challenge!

I'm gonna do it!

Is it possible? I guess we'll find out. How long will it take to get there? I guess we'll find that out too. Why am I doing this if our current budget works fine? I don't know. Maybe I will send it to our student loan every month and help that along.

In the future I may give myself a date as a goal, but for right now I'm busy just figuring all this out.

So far in the last couple weeks we've made jam and applesauce. Both were from fruit from our tree and Kris' mom's tree. So the fruit was free and the only cost was the jars, which we are able to use over and over so that wouldn't come from the grocery budget anyway. I regularly buy applesauce and so that will save me quite a bit. The organic applesauce from Costco costs us like $6 a month. If I can put back enough to last all year that would be amazing. That probably won't happen this year, but it's a process right?

We also got to pick loads of peaches and plums from a friend's house. The plums are in the dehydrator. (Nobody tell my kids that prunes are for old people, they love them!) And we are planning to can peach butter and sliced peaches. Neither of those are things I buy already, but they're delicious so that has to count for something!

This year we grew tons of potatoes and squash so that will help with the winter months. Plus, our house has a great storage room in the basement that will work awesome for keeping them!

I could go on and on...

But I won't. Not yet. One step at a time and we'll see where it takes us!

Adding Up

Remember our money jar I showed you a while back? Well, it got full and we cashed it in. Any guesses as to how much it was?

How does $225 sound? Pretty stinking awesome to me!

We put the cash in the bottom and we're on our way to filling it up again. I think by the time June rolls around we ought to be able to have two days at Lagoon and two nights in a hotel for our entire family. As well as cover our meals and spending money.

This could get addicting.

I think I'll go look under the couch cushions...

Home Sweet Home!

We did it! We found our dream house and everything fell into place perfectly and so now here I blog from my beautiful new living room. And I have a lot to say. And show you!

I don't have good house pictures yet (that's a project for the next week) but I can give you a sneak peak!

View from the back patio. My favorite place to drink my coffee.

On our first morning in the house I sat up in bed and saw this:

Living room.

Upstairs hallway. Those are built-ins at the end of the hall.

I love this laundry room. This is only half of it. Around the corner is the sink and more cupboards and drawers, a bathroom, and a door to the backyard.

We're getting nice and settled, and it's been so great. So much space and places to put everything it is strange! The kids are settled in their new school and loving it. And I've been keeping busy doing this: 

Making banana chips. yum!

Picking potatoes from our garden and apples from our tree.

Kris and I canned plum jam with the plums from his mom's tree! I've always wanted to learn how to can, but it intimidates me. A lot. We finally got brave enough to try and it wasn't bad at all!

And here's our new family member, who likes to keep me extra busy:

Her name is Zoey and she is 16 weeks old. We promised Kristian for over a year now that we would get him a puppy of his own. It was finally time to make good on that promise. She's a lot of work but it's been fun watching Kristian and her be best of friends.

I've got a new project on this blog that I will be working on. I've been planning it for a couple months now, but was unable to really work on it. Well, it's time and I'm so excited! I'll tell you all about it this next week!