Author: Steph

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Frugal Happenings – Week of 02/23-03/01/14

Wow!  I can’t believe that we’ve already gone through 2 months of the new year!  And it’s almost spring!  Next week (March 9th) is Daylight Savings Time!  As much as I detest losing that hour of sleep, I always get excited because that means the official start of spring is right around the corner.  That means hanging laundry outside to try & gardening time!

Sunday:  Day of rest for us.  I did end up going to the grocery store that morning (we attend a home church on Saturday evenings), and I ended up picking up some fried chicken while I was out.  Not frugal, but I could feel the beginnings of a migraine coming on, so I knew that I probably would not feel like cooking (and, I’m so very glad that I did pick it up because I definitely did not feel like cooking).

Monday: An extremely busy day!  I did get up and we had a homemade breakfast of homemade pancakes, bacon, eggs, & fresh fruits!  I made a pretty good-sized lunch of creamy chicken & rice casserole, except I ended up using some precooked turkey from my freezer instead of chicken.  I also added some fresh baby bella mushrooms.  It was very good!  For supper, we had plenty of leftovers, so I didn’t cook another big meal.

Our box blade arrived while I was out running a few errands & taking Katie to math class, so now our driveway is in much better shape!  I’m hoping when I come home today, I won’t slip & slide around anymore!

Brian also started plowing the garden.  I’ll be so glad when this is done & I can start planting!  I need to get a few seeds going indoors now so that I can get a jump start on my growing season!

Our two roosters also got into a scuffle yesterday & the older one did not fair too well.  After cleaning out our smaller coop, he is now in isolation for a few days.  I’m praying he makes it.

We also went ahead and cleaned out from under the roost of the main coop.  All that we removed was taken to the garden area & spread out.  It will be plowed & tilled into the soil for some great fertilizer!  Most of it is old enough it won’t hurt anything, but what is still pretty fresh will help with killing grass/weeds!

Tuesday:  Not a whole lot of frugal happenings to report for Tuesday.

Wednesday:  Not really a whole lot today, either.  Wednesdays are pretty crazy with our homeschool & Awana schedule, so I don’t usually get a whole lot done.

Thursday:  Two of my kiddos are going to spend a couple of days with their grandparents, which means that Brian & I will had some time to ourselves. (We didn’t get a whole lot done around the house, but we did spend time together. )

Friday: Did get a little shopping done & spent some time with our oldest daughter before she went to work.

Saturday: We attended a memorial service for a sweet family that had just moved to the area that lost 2 little ones in a tragic accident.  Then we went out to eat with some of our dear friends.  Then, a movie date for Brian & I!

Last week was not particularly frugal, but Brian & I did get time together & were able to plan a bit for the garden & talk about some financial goals that we have for the year.  Now, onto a new week!

Here are a few of the goals that I have for this week:

*Can some quarts of beans:  pinto, black, & kidney.

*Make & can beef stock

*Reorganize 3 of the cabinets in the kitchen & begin working on reorganizing my pantry

*Continue planning bulk food order for this month

*All meals from home (Except for lunch on Friday when we will be out doing our big monthly shopping trip.)

*Keep heat down as much as possible (another cold snap is in store for this week)

*Keep all unnecessary lights & power strips turned off when not in use.

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Frugal Happenings on the Homestead: Week of 02/16-02/22/14

I would like to start writing a weekly post about what we’ve been doing to help save money, how we’ve stretched something to make it last longer, used up something that would have otherwise gone to waste, etc.  This will also include what we’re doing to help save us money in the future, such as gardening.  I will admit that I’ve not kept a great record this week, but I plan to try to do so in the future.  It will be good for me to have a record of things, especially of things that are not working for us.  So, let me see what I can remember from last week.

Tuesday:  I cooked some chicken in the Crock Pot to make BBQ chicken.  I saved the stock to can, as well as half the chicken.  This was my first time canning chicken, but it’s so easy & it’s going to come in really handy on busy days!  I ended up with 6 pints of chicken stock & 2 pints of chicken.

Wednesday:  I began the process of slicing & dehydrating 25 lbs of carrots!  I had ordered these through Azure Standard at a great price knowing that I would be dehydrating them.  I filled all 9 trays of my dehydrator up Wednesday morning.  I usually love doing things the “old-fashioned way”  (aka by hand, using a knife & cutting board), but I did use my food processor this time.  It sure does make short work of slicing all those carrots!

Thursday:  Emptied and refilled my dehydrator with more carrots.  I also filled two 20-quart roasters will the ingredients to make chicken stock using 6 of the carcasses from some of the chickens that we culled last fall.  This will be ready to strain last Friday evening.

Friday: I emptied & refilled 5 of my trays with the last of carrots.  I filled the remaining 4 trays with some frozen peas & corn that I had. Once they were done, I had a few more bags of peas & corn left to dehydrate, so I went ahead & reloaded 4 trays.  Once I was completely done with my dehydrating, I ended up with 5 quarts of carrots, 2 quarts of corn & 2 quarts of peas.

We ordered a box blade for our farm.  It will be delivered tomorrow.  We desperately need one since the bottom of our driveway is on an incline and tends to want to wash out if we have a lot of rain, which we have had for the last several months!  This costs us a pretty penny up front, but it will save us money in the future because we can keep the driveway smooth & not have to order gravel more often.

I strained all of the chicken stock, reserving the cooked veggies for the chickens & setting the bones & any meat that had fallen off aside to be picked through.  The bones were discarded as they had given all they were going to give, & the meat was reserved to be canned. Once the stock was strained, I poured it back into the roasters, filled them the rest of the way up with fresh water, & let them simmer overnight.

I also cleaned out the last of my old basil plants & planted some more seeds.  These are on my back porch out of direct weather.  If we do get below freezing temps or snow again after they start growing, I’ll bring the pot inside.

Saturday:  My parents came to visit for a little while, so I fixed “Poor Man’s Soup” for lunch using all ingredients from my pantry – tomatoes I had canned, dehydrated veggies & carrots, potatoes from the freezer that needed to be used.  I also put out fresh fruits & veggies along with lettuce for those that would like a salad with their lunch.

With my mom’s help, I canned up 58 pints of chicken stock, 5 pints of chicken (1 seal failed & I had to discard it since it fell into my sink of soapy water), and 1 pint of water.  My supply of chicken stock is now nicely replenished!  It took us all day to get this done, but it was so worth it!

I know there are a lot of little things that I do throughout the week that I’m not thinking about, so I’m going to try to do better this week so I can see what I’m doing & maybe where I could make some improvements.

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A Few More Thoughts on Emergency Preparedness

IMG_0782I wanted to go ahead and continue with my thoughts on emergency preparedness while they are still fresh on my mind.  I’ve mentioned of few of the items we would need as far as having heat/light/sustainability, but now I want to talk a bit more about a few areas that I found to be lacking in the “food” section of my pantry.  Let me start by saying that I know we could survive just fine on what I have, but there are definitely areas that would make survival easier during both short- and long-term power outages.

Here are a few areas that I found to be “lacking” in my food pantry:

*dry milk (we are not big fans of dry milk, but it would definitely come in hand for cooking in an emergency)

*vinegar  – definitely need more of this since I use it for cleaning

*baking soda – again, I use this for cleaning

*olive oil – need for some baking/cooking

*canned beans/meats/soups -by canned I mean home canned.  This is an area that I have always been lacking in.  Canning them is not that hard, I just need to remember to do so.  Not only will these be great to use in case of power outages, but they would also be great for quick meals/lunches.

*Canning seals – While I am slowly replacing my need for regular canning seals with Tattler seals, I still am far from having enough, so this is a must until I do have enough.  Even then, I will probably still keep a small supply on hand.

*Unbleached All-Purpose flour  – I grind my on wheat but only have an electric grinder, so I need a way to be able to bake items, make pancakes, etc.

*Hand crank grain mill – to grind wheat.

I know that there are probably more items that I need to stock up, but these are the major items.

Everyone’s pantry is going to be different.  There are a lot of people/articles/sites that will tell you that you HAVE to stockpile XYZ.  But, if it’s not something that your family would normally use, don’t stock pile it.  It will only go to waste.  And, make sure that you are diligent in rotating your pantry items.  Whenever you bring in something new, date each item & put them in the back/on the bottom & move the oldest items to the front.  You wouldn’t want to be in the middle of emergency and realize that your canned items went out of date 5 years ago.  That would make an already stressful situation even more stressful.

Again, I’m sure that there are more items that I could probably list, but these are the basics that I would need to provide for my family.