Ebates--Free Money

So you guys know that occasionally I'm late to the party, right? Ebates is (in the internet's words) "a company that gives you cash back if you click through the links of the stores listed on their site." So if you're signed up with Ebates and you're buying something online (and aren't we all at this time of year), they will give you cash back for the stuff you buy.

(You can sign up through this link. If you do, I get bonus free money for referring a friend. Once signed up, you can do this too. Here's the link.

When I signed up I went to Sears.com and bought a cooking pot, which I needed because the bottom of mine looks like cancer just waiting to happen. And they gave me 6% back. When I went to Sephora and bought some make up, which I was going to buy anyway, they gave me 4% back. People, it's free money! Or at least it's free money if you stick to purchases that you would have been making anyway.

In addition to this when you sign up and make your first $25 purchase, you get a $10 gift card to a store of your choosing (I picked Walmart--super boring, I know, but practical). They then send that in the mail. So when I made my first purchase, I got my 6% back, plus I'll receive a $10 gift card. That's more free money.

And then if you refer your friends and they sign up (and spend their first $25), you get extra money there too. You always get $5 per friend. And right now, there's a promotion going on where you get $50 if two friends sign up and $100 if three friends sign up. This is why my brother-in-law introduced me to Ebates when my family came for Thanksgiving. And I have to admit that I was more than happy to sign up with his link because free money and I are friends. And I don't mind giving free money to my friends either. Free money for all, that's my motto.

Getting your free money is easy. They will send you a check or you can have the money deposited into your paypal account.

The toughest part (for me) is remembering to go to Ebates first and then shop through their site. However, there's a "button" you can download to your computer that puts a little Ebates thing in the corner of your computer screen when you're shopping online. Then you can click on that and boom, you're signed up with Ebates and any shopping you do gets you credited. I was hesitant to add a button to my computer, but I now love it with my soul. It's kind of awesome. That means you get free money and don't even have to think about anything. Win win. (It will usually ask you if you want the button. If it doesn't go to ebates.com/button.htm.  I love love love the button. Anytime you shop somewhere it pops up in the screen of your computer telling you how much that store is offering in cash back. Then you click it and you're just there--you don't have to think about anything.)

And finally, there are apps you can get. I'm (admittedly) not Captain Super App, but I know that most of the modern world is. Anyway, with the apps they'll alert you of deals that are coming up (say, if a store is giving a high cash back or if there's a promotion like the Refer Your Friend one going on right now).

But don't overthink it. Just sign up through them. Shop as you normally would (starting at their site first) and then, bam, free money.

Also, use my link to sign up for Ebates. Get me free money, yourself free money, and then get your friends to sign up so they can get free money too! Whee!!!

Here it is:
http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=d0lSciT0t%2BiG2vGgIs119Q%3D%3D&eeid=28187

A Shamelessly Self-Serving Post

This isn't about food. It's not even about cheap stuff.  It does involve a coupon. That's something right.

Recently, I bought a candle as a gift for a friend. When I did, they gave me this coupon code and said that if someone else bought a candle, they would get $10 off and I would get a free candle. (Here's the code if you're interested: http://my.cndl.es/x/qka7y8).

I thought that sounded like a pretty good deal. For me of course. And for you too if you were thinking of buying a scented soy candle for yourself or someone you love. And not just any soy candle--a soy candle with a ring hidden inside. Like--you burn the candle and in the wax is this ring in a bag/foil. The ring comes with a code that could score you a valuable ring (one ranging from $100-5000 in value--you have supposedly 1 in 100 chance for the $100 ring; 1 in 1000 for the $1000 and 1 in 5000 for the $5000).

I've been slightly obsessed with this concept for a while (why oh why did I not think of it myself). They're like Cracker Jacks for grown ups. (Some might say that they're like crack, but I'm not quite willing to go that far.) Some people consider the idea lunacy--why not just go out and buy yourself a ring if you want one? My brain understands that question, but my inner child is all about fishing some waxy bag with a piece of jewelry out of a scented candle. I don't know. My cheapskate can't justify the idea, but I may or may not have recently bought a candle for myself (for research purposes of course, and because soy candles are supposed to be better environmentally and burn cleaner and I did need a nice scent for winter and all...). And I'm obviously trying to find a cheaper way to score another one. Shameless.

If you would like to feed your inner child rather than your party-pooping grown up. Or if you know someone whose inner child is alive and well, then feel free to click on this link and get yourself $10 off. I believe that this link is good for another three days. And, who knows, after you make your purchase, maybe you'll get a link to send to all your friends so you can get yourself a free candle. Go on, spread the lunacy. Happy wax fishing.

$10 off Diamond Ring Candle:
http://my.cndl.es/x/qka7y8

What a Cheapskate Gets Paid

Occasionally an article pops up about how much housewives/at-home-mothers are "worth." As in financially, as in--if they weren't around doing stuff in their families for free, how much would you have to fork out to pay someone to do the jobs they do. These articles can be a weird combination of insulting and empowering to a housewife/at-home-mother. Speaking as one, I can say that it's nice to feel that the things I do actually contribute financially to the family. And, yet, to put a price tag on the things we so lovingly do (listening to our children slowly sound out words, following a tween as she runs to her room and hurls herself upon the bed, catching your toddler's throw up in your hands--preferably before it hits the couch)--well, you just can't price that stuff, and to try to is insulting.

Yet I do feel that we cheapskates (whether we work full-time, part-time, or stay at home) are making significant financial contributions. I remember the day when my husband and I were trying to work out the details for a life insurance policy. We were discussing the moneys each of us would need if the other died (yeah, fun stuff). I realized that he (the "breadwinner") would need nearly as much money as I (the bread couponer/baker/saver) would. I realized that my contributions were financially significant--that I was not his dependent at all (as certain hair-raising feminists might have you believe), but a significant co-contributor to our financial life together. It felt good; my tiny inner feminist who has chosen to stay home for reasons bigger than herself kinda cheered.

So fellow cheapskates, this is what you get "paid."

1. Childcare:

Not all cheapskates need childcare, but it's often the first thing people talk about when trying to financially validate motherhood (because again, choosing to stay at home with your kids is all about finances, right?) But anyway, if I died, we would need childcare. Supposing Kip changed to day shift (which would cost him several thousand dollars a year in the first place since right now he earns night-time differential pay), that would be about $400/month. For our three school-aged children to go to after school day care, we'd add another $300/month. So that's $700/month that I "earn" for the family.


2. Food:

Each month we spend about $400 on food for our family of six (that's food only--no toiletries, etc.). I looked up the average amount a family of four spend. The Department of Agriculture estimates it between $600 (thrifty food plan) and $1160 (liberal food plan--meaning food that's a lot nicer) per month. They also give numbers for low-cost and moderate-cost averages if you're interested. SNAP gives (as a maximum allotment) a family of four $632 (and a family of six like us would get a whopping $900/month). Using those numbers as a guide, I save us at least another $200 plus on food a month and we eat pretty healthy and tastily.

How we do it (and please remember that these aren't must-do's; they're what I do):

-I make food at home.
-I do a super cheap (think rice and beans or eggs for dinner) meal once a week, sometimes more.
-We try really really hard not to waste food. About once every month or two I go through my freezers and make a list of the random things in there and try to cook from that.
-I take free food when it's offered, even if I have to freeze or can it.
-My kids are picky. This makes our budget cheaper because often they just want sandwiches or really plain food (not helpful, but just trying to be honest).
-I shop uber cheap stores like Aldi and Ruler Foods. When I don't, I take a quick jaunt through coupons.com and get a few coupons--it doesn't save me tons, but that $5 I save at Walmart always makes me happy.

3. Gas

This is a tough one for our family and we are not super thrifty with our gas. Kip has a 30 minute commute, which adds up. And my kids are getting to the ages where they have some activities sometimes (we're not crazy busy, but driving to soccer and friends' houses adds cost). We spend a good $500/month on gas. Sometimes more. I know--ouch. I don't help with this much, though I always try to combine errands (and I know how much a random trip to Walmart costs--$1.50, so I avoid them). We also use our Discover card, which is right now offering 5% cashback bonus on gas, which is about $25 extra bucks a month while the promotion goes on, so I'm giving myself $25/month for this one. (Kip would never manage more than one credit card in order to maximize rewards, but I have the type of brain that enjoys that so I do).

How we do it:

-Since we're unwilling to move or avoid our friends who are farther than 10 minutes away, my best advice is to consciously combine errands and to use a credit card with good rewards for gas--something that pays between 2% and 5% for gas. It'll give you a little extra Christmas money. (In fact, if you use Discover, you can earn your 5% for gas in months July-September, which you can use on Amazon. And then for October-December, you can get 5% back for all internet purchases for said Christmas presents. Yay!)
-Another thing you might consider is sending your kids to school on the bus. If you take them to school and your school is, say, three miles away (and it's not on your way to somewhere), you're spending about $1 for your round trip. Do that twice a day and you've spent an extra $40 on gas. No pressure all you loving loving moms; it's just something to think about because you could buy yourself a dress with that.

4. Clothes

The mighty internet says that women typically spend between $150 and $400/month on clothes. I'm not sure if these numbers are for working women or at-home women or a combination. Don't worry--I did a very scientific facebook poll of my friends and most of them spend less than this. So, it seems a bit high to me, especially since until about 3 years ago I only bought clothes if mine were deteriorating off my body. Recently, however, I've begun to spend more. I'd say I average about $25 or less for me/Kip and less for all my kids (clothes/shoes/socks/undies--the works). So $50/month as a rather high estimate. (I don't even consider this amount a badge of cheapskate honor in any way--you could probably do much better if you didn't care much about clothese.) According to the mighty internet, that means that I save over $100/month on clothes. That doesn't really seem fair since cute clothes are hardly a necessity (especially for a non-working woman), but I am going to give myself $50/month because I clothe my kids on a shoestring (and if you see them and they look like urchins, it's because they choose the pink basketball shorts and old pink shirt, not because they don't have other clothes).

How to do it:

-I shop consignment shops--they are AWESOME for jeans (for grown-ups especially) and for younger children's clothes. I also consign clothes there, which earns us (on average) about $10/month.
-I try not to buy more than we actually need, especially for my kids who currently could not care less about clothes (yes, it is tempting to buy all those cute things for you or your children and, yes, I sometimes succumb, but usually I try to keep it simple).
-I accept and love hand-me-downs. My kids are too young to care.
-I shop clearance racks pretty much every single time I buy new and use coupons on top of that if I can. Kohl's is very good for this. To be honest, the only time I can ever remember paying full price for an article of clothing was once a couple years ago when I bought a red dress ($50) that I loved with my soul, but even that was from Marshall's.
-Generally, when buying clothes for myself, I use a $1 rule. Will I wear it enough that it will be $1 or less per wear? So if I pay $10 for a shirt, I feel I should wear it at least 10 times. If I don't like it enough to do that, I don't buy it. Of course there's wiggle room--generally jeans are used much much more, though a dress might be worn a bit less than that. Still, if I'm thinking of buying a dress for $40 and I know I'll only wear say, two, times, I wouldn't buy it. Again--no pressure here; it's just a sort of guide that helps me decide if a piece of clothing is worth it to me.

5. Maids/gyms/stuff

-I don't pay anybody to clean my house. Maybe if you come to my house you could guess that. But believe it or not, I do a pretty thorough cleaning every Monday (laundry, toilets, bathtub, cupboards, floors, sometimes dusting--ugh, windows). It takes me about 2 hours. Again, I did a check on the mighty internet and people seem to expect to pay their cleaning ladies between $10 and $15, which seems painfully low, but it is what it is. So I'm giving myself $80/month for that.
-Kip does our lawn (if he didn't I would), which saves us at the very very least $200/month (truthfully, it's probably more like $500 since we have a big lawn that is tricky to mow, but I'm estimating for an average house here).
-We don't have a gym membership. I workout at home 5-6 days a week and Kip runs several times a week. For this we need shoes and some appropriate clothes. Also occasionally I miss the comradery of gyms (I love gyms) and go with friends. Still instead of spending $50/month, I spend about $10. I'm not giving myself any "money saved" for this since obviously going to the gym is not a life necessity, nor is it bad in any way (did I mention I love gyms). But I'm mentioning it because it does help us save money.

CONCLUSION:

So what have I earned for us: 

$1080/month. Tax free! (Kip's earned us another $200-500/month on that yard--thanks, love). Which is a very respectable part-time job. It's more than I could earn if I up and decided to work 20 hours/week at a department store for $12/hour. And did I mention it's tax-free!

Please note that this isn't to say that you can't work and also save this money--sure you can--then you'll be that much more ahead (although you probably can't work all the time and save money--there just isn't enough time to make it all happen). This is simply to point out some of the significant financial value of cheapskating your way through life. 

I Am Groot

So apparently Marvel has fashioned one of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" characters after the parsnips in my garden. I keep waiting for my royalty check, but it hasn't come yet.

Personally I think this should be the next Elf on a Shelf. It meets all the requirements--a creepy creature that I've been hiding at various points in our house for my son to see. Also, Groot's original  mission was to capture humans for experimentation. And, I don't know about you, but when I see the smile on the Elf on the Shelf's face, I think, "He's probably planning to capture humans for experimentation." Twinners.

Free Birthday Stuff

I interrupt this post to announce that soon it will be my birthday. You know what that means, right? That's right--cake. I should have a German Chocolate to you soon.

It also means free stuff. I have had this birthday dream for a while where I go around town on my birthday getting all kinds of free stuff available to me. Fun, huh? But I've never really done it. So tonight I decided to google "What can I get on my birthday for free?" Turns out you can get a whole stinking lot, people. And much of it totally straight up free--or so these bloggers claim. (Grand Slam at Denny's, Ice Cream from Baskin Robbins, free gift from Sephora). I admit that before I did this little Google search I was going to write an earnest, but pointless little post on the, like, two things I've ever tried. Instead, let me just link you to some posts with tons of ideas. That way you can sign up for what you like and get stuff on your birthday for free. Even though my spam will surely not thank me, I just signed up for a few things myself. I'm hoping I actually get them on my birthday this year (if not, I'm going to be totally unimpressed with whoever it is even if they do think I'm lying about my birth date since I just signed up conveniently right beforehand--surely I'm not the first.

And if you know of something you love to get for free on your birthday, please for all that is good and free in this world--leave a comment. My birthday happiness depends on it.

Below are three links.

Freebie Depot

All You

Hey It's Free

Freezer Clean Out: A New Year's Suggestion to Save Money and Feel Better

I love January. It just feels so fresh to me. A new year. A pause after the holidays and before the work that can be spring.

But January can be a very empty wallet time of year. And for many people the cold empty space that is January can be really depressing.

Well, not to oversimplify a potentially complex problem, (by which I mean  I'm totally going to oversimplify a potentially complex problem), you should clean out your freezer. It helps with January blahs and January budget.

I have a regular freezer and a small chest freezer. I recently cleaned both of them out only to find that I had a butt load of food just sitting in my house waiting for me to notice it. I mean, sure I knew my freezers had food in them. Why else would they be so stuffed that I could barely squeeze another little item in? But I had only a vague-ish idea of what exactly kinds of food were in those freezers. So I pulled everything out, put like items with like items in little bins, bags, or sections. And then I made a list (yes, a list) of what I had in each freezer. I CANNOT tell you how free this made me feel. Suddenly I knew there was a block of Swiss cheese in the upstairs freezer. And I knew which bin it was in (the cheese bin--because I had a lot of cheese hanging out). Before I cleaned out my freezers, I'd go to the store and think, "Do I have Swiss cheese? Hmm, I'm not sure. Better grab another." Now I don't have to. It's on the list. Also, my freezer just looked so nice I wanted to keep opening the door and showing it to people, "Hey Kip, look at this. Hey kids, look at this. Hey random stranger who is the mailman, want to check out my orderly freezer." It's beautiful, people, beautiful.

After I knew what food I had, I did something radical. I planned my meals around those foods. Yeah, I'm kind of a genius; try not to be too jealous.

And I realized that I wouldn't have to buy much more than milk, eggs, and some produce this month--for the WHOLE month. I have that much food. And I had NO idea I had that much food. I had no idea what lovely things I could create with the food in my house.

So give it a try. It actually took less than 30 minutes (about 15 minutes per freezer; I also cleaned my pantry to get an idea of my dry goods), lists and all.

Happy New Year!

(Want more tips? Check out this article from The Stick Vacuums.)

Abundant Earth Works--a post about jewelry, not food

And here we have another post that is not about food.

Soon this is going to be one of those blogs where people just post about boots and hairstyles and stuff. Okay, probably not.

But I did get something really amazingly beautiful for my anniversary in November. I was so happy with it that I wanted to give a little call-out to the shop Abundant Earth Works and the designer Dawn on Etsy. She's not a personal friend or anything. I didn't know her at all until I asked her to do this necklace for me (uh, which was from Kip for our anniversary). I just was so so happy with the necklace she made me. And since it's Black Thursday weekend now seemed like a good time.

I should tell you all that I have a small jewelry addiction. Not the fancy stuff from those corner jewelry stores in the mall. No. I find them a little boring and a lot overpriced. In fact, I noticed last year when I went from store to store looking for an original-looking mother's ring that all the rings from every jewelry store in town looked exactly the same. In fact, everything sort of looked the same. I've always liked jewelry that looked a little different from everybody else's. It doesn't hurt when it has a $20 price tag instead of a $200/2000 price tag either.

In particular I tend to love stones. No, I don't mean diamonds. I'm talking about, you know, rocks. I love them. Nerdy style. Like me and my kids will go to these "shows" put on by the lapidary club and just spend hours looking at rocks. Last year, at one such event, I got a piece of polished chrysocolla for free with another purchase. It was so so beautiful, but I didn't really know what to do with it. It sat on my shelf for quite some time and then I thought maybe I'd try to find someone to wrap it for me. I checked many many shops on Etsy. They would mostly do it for between $30 and usually closer to $50 or $60. That was a little high for me. But Dawn at Abundant Earth Works did it for less than $20. Which is remarkable in and of itself, but she also did a bang up job. I linked to several examples of wrappings that I liked, sent her my stone, and then crossed my fingers and left her to do what she thought best. (I've done this with other Etsy jewelry people before and found that we often just don't see eye to eye, no matter how anal my descriptions are of what I want). What I got was better than anything I could have imagined. I mean, it was just gorgeous. The picture looked better than what I'd pictured and then the actual necklace was even prettier than that. I've never been so happy with a jewelry purchase before--especially one I had asked someone to design (meaning I didn't really know what it would look like at the end).

You don't have to have a random stone hanging around your house either (though if you do, we could totally be friends). She's got plenty of stones on her shop to choose from.

So if you're in the market for something pretty, unique, and not bank-breaking this holiday season, give Dawn a try. She's having a Black Friday sale through Dec. 3rd where she gives at least 15% off (and up to 25% depending on how much you spend). Do it.

How to Get Crayon Out of Washed and Dried Clothes Cheaply

This blog doesn't usually diverge from food (does it ever diverge from food). I don't claim to be the least bit crafty. I definitely don't claim to be super neat or organized or put together. Fashion? (I like things with butterflies/birds on them; and braids.) So, yeah, me and my girls kind of have the same fashion sense.

But today I want to give you a different kind of recipe--one you will not eat. Why? Because last week my girls' clothes went through the laundry (washer and dryer) with an orange crayon in it. Which--in case you're one of the lucky uninitiated--meant that all their laundry--new school clothes and all--came out with splotches of orange crayon all over them. And I do mean all over. And I do mean splotches. And I do mean orange. I knelt by the laundry basket for several minutes just looking through it in despair. What good does it do to try to save money on food if you have to go out and buy all new pants for your six-year-old only a month after you went out and bought a bunch of new clothes for your six-year-old.

Now--not shockingly because I am a sort of lazy mother--I'd had this happen to me once before several years ago (green crayon on my son's clothes). Then I had used a different (and effective) internet recipe and most of that green had come out. But it had required lots of somewhat expensive "ingredients" (Tide--like, a cup of it, Borax, Oxyclean, and some other stuff). Also, when my sister had come to our house once bearing a load of laundry that had crayon all over it, this "recipe" hadn't worked for her. I don't know why, but it didn't.

So I went back online to look for a different "recipe." And I found one with just three ingredients (plus HOT water) that were cheap. And it worked really really well. The crayon came off of almost everything the first time. The stuff that still had a little on I ran again and it came off of all except one pair of polyester Tinkerbell jammies (who knows?)

I didn't actually think it would work (too easy right), so I didn't take any before pictures. I should have. Fortunately for me and my lazy, slightly sloppy-basemented self, I found this sock after I'd washed all the clothes (orange splotches plus orange-ish hue). Now look at its nice clean mate. Impressive, eh? And many of the clothes were much much worse than this sock (no, I don't unroll my kids' socks either when I do the wash; told you--lazy parent; unrolling is their job and they do it badly).

And truly the extra beautiful thing about not needing to re-wardrobe my children was that one load of this de-crayoning laundry cost only about $.10-.20 more than a normal load of laundry.

How to Get Crayon Out of Washed and Dried Clothes Cheaply
thanks to Diary of a Doctor's Wife
\
Regular amount of laundry detergent for one load (I had some Tide coldwater, but any type should do--the original poster used All Free and Clear. I imagine even a cheaper laundry detergent would do as long as it's not super-cheap-watered-down-doesn't-clean-your-regular-laundry kind of stuff)
1/2 C vinegar
4-6 Tbsp dish soap (the kind you use to wash your dishes with by hand; I had Great Value)

Run the hot water in (you want it super hot, so turn up your water heater or add some boiling water or whatever, but lukewarm will not do). Add detergent, vinegar, and dish soap.

Put clothes in and shut lid so all that heat stays in.

Let sit for 15 minutes. Set a timer if you must because you don't want the water to get cold.

Run laundry.

Note: I did not have any crayon on my dryer (I think because I had a towel in there that seemed to wipe it off as it dried--that towel was covered in crayon and I really wish I'd taken a before and after of it, because after this recipe I could not see any orange). However, sometimes if a crayon gets in the dryer, the dryer gets crayon on it and that, my friends, is bad because it will then continue to color any clothes you put in there. Diary of a Doctor's Wife used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to get her dryer clean after red crayon got all over it. So if you need to clean your dryer, this is probably a good method.

Eating Cheap: A Note from the Middle (lowerish) Class

Let's talk money. No one ever does. But we should.

Kip and I are not poor. But we're not rich either. We make between 50K and 60K a year and have 4 children. There. I said it. We live in the Midwest where housing is cheaper, but food and utilities are fairly average, sometimes even on the high side. We do have an Aldi--bless it.

I find that there's not a whole lot written about the middle class and food. What I tend to notice is that the upper class (the Michael Pollens and NYTimesers of the world) tend to think and write about food a lot and that they tend to think and write about the poor and food and the problems the poor face with food. The interesting thing about this is that it creates a sort of great divide. These well-off folks are writing about a class of people they don't know very well (my mother would have called that gossip). The wealthy don't have food insecurity; they don't understand food insecurity; they may have never had or understood food insecurity in their whole lives. Yet they came up with the word 'food insecurity.' Sometimes they go all rogue and sort or pretend to be poor for a while so they can write about their experience with it (we see this in books like Nickel and Dimed, in those challenges to live on a food stamp budget, and even on this blog with the Cheap Eat Challenge--although in my defense, part of the reason for that was a need/desire to chop our food budget down because something in our budget had to give and there wasn't another area with any room to give).

The problem with the divide between the people who are writing/proposing solutions and the people who are actually struggling is that those well-off writers either spend their time writing about what they think will solve the (food) problems of the poor (i.e. We need to put more fresh foods into the food deserts of urban communities so the poor can make better food choices.). Or how the rich have no right to judge the poor because the rich can't possibly understand the plight of the poor, so we should just pity the poor and try to come up with some nice, easy solutions for those poor people who can clearly only handle nice, easy solutions (i.e. the poor don't have time to cook or the education to make good food choices, so we need to provide processed food options that are healthy and affordable). Both attitudes come off as more than a little condescending. Because there's just too big of a divide. The rich can't talk about the poor. Which is where that puzzlingly ignored middle class comes in. Some of us are close to being poor; or have recently risen above the poverty level; or spent our childhoods very poor; or have made significant sacrifices in order to step out of the class called "poor." In other words, we've worked the crappy jobs, know what a generic shoe looks like, and have probably devoted a portion of our lives to the consumption of ramen noodles (or, in my case, spaghetti with that cheap Hunts sauce--eaten cold at work thank you very much). Generally, the middle class can pinch a penny, though they might not have to pinch it quite so hard it yells. At least not anymore.

Because of this I think the middle class has a lot to contribute as far as useful suggestions about how to eat pretty healthy and pretty cheap. But our voices are rarely heard. (Presumably because we're at home making a healthy, cheap dinner and not sitting at our oak desk writing about the plight of the poor.) Indeed it seems that the voices of the middle class are usually drowned out by the wealthier voices that are either telling the poor they should be making all organic lunches for their children that are shaped like owls. Or they are saying, "Boo hoo for the poor; it just must be so terrible to be you. All you can possibly afford is boxed mac and cheese and it's just making you so dumb and fat. Maybe it'd help if there were a healthy option on the McDonald's dollar menu?" I don't think either attitude is very helpful.

So today I'm going to go all crazy and political on you and offer several suggestions (sometimes attached to a little pet peeve of mine) about how we can eat a little cheaper, but still pretty well. They won't be all-organic or require a trip to Whole Foods. Of course they might not be dollar menu easy either, but I trust you're smart and motivated enough to put forth a little effort if you want to eat well yet inexpensively. And if you're not, there's probably some rich guy crying over his mocha latte for you right now, so don't worry--he's getting that healthy fast food organic thing all under control.

1. Make dinner. And probably lunch. You can have a pass for breakfast and eat cereal if you want (though oatmeal is way cheaper and, I think, tastier), but a Sausage McMuffin is going to need to be skipped. Well, most days.

2. Eat fruit and vegetables. But it's okay if you serve them over rice or pasta instead of quinoa or farro or beside a steak. (Note: I love quinoa and farro and they're super healthy. They're not even very expensive or difficult/time consuming to make. But if you're really pressed financially or just struggling to enjoy those weird, healthy options, have some pasta with a delicious tomato sauce. Heck, throw in some broccoli on the side if you want to go all crazy.)

3. You can buy produce that is not organic or local. I am not going to fight here about which is better or worse. All I am going to say is that fruit and vegetables are better than crackers and chips. And while they have much lower calorie counts and therefore always show up unfavorably in "studies" about food and the poor, they are just as filling as their junk counterparts. A banana is about the same price as 1/5 of a can of Pringles and it's better for you and more filling. Also, you usually stop after one banana, but you don't always stop after 1/5 can of Pringles. Maybe bananas aren't a "local food," but we're going to look past that for now. (p.s. Pringles aren't a local food either.)

4. You can use cream of whatever soup or canned sauce or store-bought dressing if you're pressed for time, but if you have extra time and can make them from scratch, it's a little cheaper and a little healthier. Nevertheless, a crock pot meal with veggies and meat and cream of whatever soup is cheaper and healthier than a fast food meal or freezer dinner. And, frankly, many crock pot meals take less time to throw together than a wait in the drive thru line.

5. Leftovers. Seriously, people. Maybe Michael Pollen wants us to eat foods our grandmothers recognized. I'd bet a million bucks they recognized leftovers. You can be all cute and pack them up for your (or your husband's) lunches the next day or make them into some fabulous leftover meal. Or you can just throw some Saran wrap over the serving dish and call it good. But eat them. Love them.

6. Take 10 minutes to sort of think about your meals for the week before you go shopping. Nothing has to be color coded. You don't have to plan every meal and every food. But have a sort of vague-ish idea of what you will be eating. I don't care what socio-economic class you belong to. I don't care if you live downtown with only an expensive corner store or if you live in the suburbs or if you live 1/2 mile from a good grocery store, this will be helpful to you when you shop.

7. If you don't have a vague-ish idea of what to eat this week, know what your basics are and buy them. Our list looks a little like this: Cereal, oatmeal, milk, eggs, pasta, sauce, bread, PB, jam, chicken, broccoli, whatever fruit is cheap, hamburger meat, rice, potatoes, and maybe some fish if I pass by and think about it. This isn't a perfect list; it could get boring if I never planned a meal, but when I find myself in the store with only a vague idea that the refrigerator is empty, I try to remember to buy the basics and then maybe a few things that seem interesting; and I trust that life will fall into place. It usually does.

So... what am I missing? Feel free to chime in middle class or lower class (or even upper class) cheapskates. What do you do that's not crazy to keep your food life tasty, but cheap? 

Thoughts on Cheap Eating

Two years ago, we finished the first part of our Cheap Eat Challenge--the challenge in which we tried to spend less than $6/day on food for our family of 6. We never quite made it. Our best month we finished up with an average of $6.87. Which I thought was still pretty good. Since then I've loosened up on the food reigns considerably (maybe sometimes too much). But there are a few things from that time that we still do. And a few more that I think I will start to do again.

What We've Held onto from the Cheap Eat Challenge

1. Leftover Night. Sometimes I can make something fresh and cool from our leftovers. Sometimes we just eat them as they are. Sometimes we have really weird odds and ends and it's not quite enough to feed everybody. On those days, I pull out the bread and PB and we eat leftovers plus sandwiches. Maybe it sounds lame to you, but it's really kind of a nice, stress free dinner.

2. I take free food when it's offered to me. A friend brings over raspberries. Someone has a basket of zucchini from their garden. There are three bagels left over from your work meeting and your boss is going to toss them if nobody takes them home (I, being me, am always surprised that everyone doesn't fight over who gets to take home the leftover meeting foods, but I noticed--even in grad school--that usually no one wants to take those foods; or at least nobody speaks up). Take the bagels for Pete's sake. And then use them. It's fun.

3. I make dinner. It's not always easy, but it's definitely not as hard as our modern world would have you believe. I'm not even that great at planning our meals. Granted, I don't make gourmet meals every night. My kids' lunches never ever look like this. But they don't look like this either. Sometimes for dinner, we just eat eggs, toast, and a fruit. But you'd be surprised how good eggs, toast, and a fruit taste when you all sit down and eat a warm meal together. We still eat out occasionally, but I try to avoid the "Oh, I'm tired, so let's go out" syndrome--The good (sort of bad) thing about having 4 youngish children is that going out really isn't that easy anyway, so it's considerably less tempting. If I'm going to wind up tired and grumpy anyway, we can just stay home and fish something out of the back of the fridge.

If we ate out (even dollar menu fast food) twice a week for lunch or dinner, we would spend about double what we spend--let's say $13 instead of $7. By not doing this we save about $50/month. It's not big money, but I think Benjamin Franklin would approve of all those saved/earned pennies.

Where I Feel I Should Re-Tighten the Cheapskate Reigns

1. Meal Planning. Seriously, I just need to do a better job of planning meals and shopping lists. I don't even hate it; I kind of like it; I just don't always get around to it.

2. Shopping. During the Cheap Eat Challenge, I DID NOT DEVIATE from my list. I didn't buy anything extra. We didn't do impulse things. Now I do. And it's kind of nice to do; I even think it's okay for an item; maybe two. But it can get out of hand really really quickly.

3. Cooking breakfast. I don't even like cereal. But my kids do. And it sure is easy. When we did the Cheap Eat Challenge, I made breakfast probably 4 or 5 days out of the week. It was harder, but not that bad. I don't necessarily want to go back to that many times (because we have to catch the bus at 7:30 people, and my kids are not early risers), but I want to do homemade breakfast a little more. Besides a nice nutritious breakfast that's cheap, we usually have leftover muffins/breakfast cookies/whatevers for healthy snacks/lunches later in the week.

4. Big cooking mornings. During the Cheap Eat Challenge I would take a couple mornings a week and cook stuff (like a sauce from garden tomatoes, or muffins to put in the freezer or 12 kinds of chocolate chip cookies so I could find the best one). My kids would play. It was pleasant and homey. Lately I've been a little busy for that. But I kind of miss it--the hominess and the stocked food.

Fourth of July Fail (Beauty from Ashes--a little too literally)

For the 4th, we decided to have a nice, simple family cookout. We would keep it low-fuss and make hobo dinners and hang out together (warm snugglies).

Only, I was just in a bad mood yesterday. Partly because I'd spent the last couple days feeling inadequate about several things in my life. Partly because I felt a little lonely and kind of wished we were hanging out with more people. Partly because I felt like each time we tried to make the best of things and do something cool, something extra-frustrating would happen (like Emma peeing right down her legs at the zoo; arg).

By dinner I was hungry. We wrapped up our dinners. I made a special strawberry drink, but other than that, it really was low fuss.

And then when we went to eat, the lovely pictured above is what we got. This, by the way, was one of the more successful packages. There were at least two that were charred black and light as air.

And here, I'd like to say that--like a true champion--I laughed it off and sent Kip off to Rally's to buy some burgers. But I didn't. I was hungry and grumpy and then Mark said--or I thought he said--"so you didn't have a back-up plan?" Into which I further read: Snark snark about your food; it's always lame and terrible.

At which point I said 'shut up' (which is a word considered dirty in this house) and walked off. Mark cried, Kip called me back. I told Kip to go get some edible food from Rally's (burger joint in case you're wondering). And then I sat and picked at the food while Mark continued to cry and Savannah said she liked the burnt food to try to make it all better.

After a few minutes it occurred to me that I could ruin this holiday or I could allow it to be good. I didn't even have to make it good. I just had to let it happen. It wanted to be good, but I was stopping it. Me. Not Mark with his rude comment about dinner. Not Kip who had cooked our meals into oblivion. Nope. Me. I was the one with the attitude all day long. I was the one who'd made my son cry.  I was the wall that everyone kept hitting when they were all ready to go forth with holiday happy-go-lucky funness. I'm not sure how I got this thought with such clarity. I can only assume it was a grace from God that let me think straight for that one clear-eyed minute.

So I went over to Mark and put my arm around him and apologized. Turns out he had asked if there was a back-up plan, not snarked about how I should have had one. And we all just sat there for a few minutes, tears drying up, and everyone starting to feel better--the bad melting off, ready to be replaced with something good (another grace from God). And then we gathered up the dirty dishes and burnt meals and cleaned up and Kip got back with burgers and fries (and over-priced shakes that everyone was so happy about they were worth every penny) and we ate and laughed and set off fireworks and it was--indeed--a lovely, lovely night. Maybe even a little better--a little sweeter--for the bitter we'd tasted earlier.

I found that today I wanted to write about it. Not so much to talk about the event (though I've spent plenty of time on that, now haven't I), but to talk about blogging and perfection and the appearance thereof.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the internet faces we get to see--everybody's pretty facebook shots and clever quips. All those blogs with the food spread out and a post about simplicity and togetherness. The pictures of people's children--dolled up and smiling. Pinterest (need I say more). I admit that sometimes perfect food, happy kids, and general gloriousness are what happen in life. But often--as we all know until we start to disbelieve it because it seems like everyone else is doing so much better than we are--we have messes and complaining at dinner and tears and grumpy kids or bloody-shinned kids or kids who haven't gotten their hair French braided in months, people, months.

It starts to weigh a little on the soul. This is a post to beg us--you and me--not to let this happen. Beautiful things can happen, and it's not wrong to celebrate when they do. Ugly things can happen too. It's okay to acknowledge them and do our best to move on and improve. But what we should really try to avoid is thinking that every pretty thing that happens to someone else is what always happens to everyone else all the time. We should also try very hard to avoid knowing that we have something ugly (or at least somewhat homely) and stick a pretty face on it anyway and then say to all our friends, "Hey look at this pretty face; you should have one too." This sort of thing isn't helpful to anyone (come on--you all know those Pinterest crafts/recipes/homemade hair products you've tried that have not even kind of sort of resembled the magazine-esque picture posted.)

I'm not saying we should resent other people's talents or the beautiful moments of their lives. I'm not saying we should air all our dirty laundry. I'm not saying that everyone needs to know everything bad about us every time. I'm just saying that there's no reason to put so much make-up on our faces that we forget there's a face underneath. In bloggy-land or otherwise.

Let freedom ring.

Mother's Day: A Belated Grief

It's not at all about food (although somehow I intended it to be when I started), but here's a post I wrote for Whitney Johnson's blog about my mother and writing and believing in myself . Enjoy.

Homemade versus the Dollar Menu

First. Let me be clear. I am not opposed to eating out sometimes. I am not opposed to the dollar menu. I am not opposed to being tired and wanting a break from cooking or cleaning up. I'm not even opposed to being completely unprepared for dinner some nights and being completely starved at dinner time and just going out.

What I am opposed to is the idea that eating out is cheaper than eating in. It's not. It makes me crazy crazy obscenely crazy to hear and/or read articles/people talk about how cheap fast food is. It is not cheap. It is easy. It is fast (sometimes). It is a source of pleasure for some. It is tasty for some. It is convenient for many. But it is not cheap. Also, the people who work there always look at me like they would personally be much happier if I were dead and I don't care for that much, but that's beside the point.

We're not even going to talk about the combo meals because when I see a $6-8 (per person) "meal" with a sandwich, fries and soda, I see what could have been a small roast in the crock pot with some ranch powder, potatoes and carrots. People, it's not even any more work than standing in line while your kids whine and the hollow-eyed workers give you death stares. So, no, we're not going to talk about combo meals.

We're going to talk about the dollar menu. If each member of my family orders two items from the dollar menu, we pay $12 plus tax. This is not, by any means, terrible. But it is also not particularly cheap (especially if you consider that little roast up above that could be a big roast for $10). Also, two items is filling enough for the me and the kids, but not really for Kip.

Again, let me reiterate that this isn't about taste or convenience or funness. It's about cost (though I personally believe homemade meals kick butt in the taste department too; they just don't always taste the same as beloved fast food staples). If you love Rally's fries (because I know I do--oh, yes, I do), then so be it. I just don't want to hear that they're any cheaper than my home fries, which are about 25 cents a serving.

Homemade Hamburgers and Fries to serve 6

1.5 lb hamburger: $6.00 (not a sale price there either)
buns: 1.50
condiments: .50
Potatoes for fries: 1.50

Total: $9.50

I realize that you have to make this food, then clean it up. I get that. But you're looking at much higher quality food too. $4/pound is how much our humanely raised (though not grass fed) beef costs. And the home fries are a whole food made with just potatoes and oil and salt. Also you can go nuts with the condiments if you want (my family always does). Also, there are no plastic chairs. Or scary employees (that is, unless you've had a very bad day and are giving the kids some good death stares of your own).

Next we'll compare some good old fashioned subway style sandwiches and fruit to the old dollar menu. This is not an apples to apples comparison because this is obviously not a burger type meal, but it is one that takes virtually no effort, so in that way I thought it a good comparison as well. You just put the stuff on the table and people make the sandwiches they want. You can have this meal on the table in less time you wait in line at McDonald's for lunch. We had it for dinner the other night and it was so good and satisfying and filling and EASY that it's what got me thinking about the whole dollar menu thing.

6-inch subs with fruit  for 6

Meat (deli chicken): 4.00
buns: 1.50
pickles: .50
cheese: .75
toppings (tomatoes, lettuce, mayo, ketchup, mustard): .75
apple: .50
orange: .25
pear: .25

Total: 8.50

Again this isn't even the cheapest of the cheap. These were delicious, fully loaded sandwiches. And everyone got 1/2 serving of fruit (which could have been doubled with another dollar). As an aside, my kids couldn't eat a full sandwich so we had leftovers the next day.

So go ahead and eat out. Have fun with it for Pete's sake. Or do it when you're out and haven't prepared anything and people in your car are melting down like a square of American cheese on a cheeseburger. This isn't about fast food guilt. But please please please spare me those droning arguments about how cheap fast food is and that that's why people have to eat it and that there's no possible way they could ever eat anything else more filling or more healthy. Cause, yeah, you might get a hollow-eyed death stare from me.

P.S. As a follow up, I'll soon be doing a post on faster-than-fast food meals you can make and enjoy.

Peach Pie with My Mother

I made my first peach pie several years ago. It's crust was approximately 1/2 inch thick, maybe more. Yup. My mom was here helping me. All I had was this dinky little rolling pin that was about 6 inches long and was kind of like rolling out pie crust with a glass cup. Other mothers would have run out and bought me a decent rolling pin. My mom, being plenty cheapskate just like me, just went with it and smiled about it. She probably also said "Geesh." My mom was always saying "Geesh."

Since then, I've learned a few things about making pie. Since then, my mother has suffered from a brain tumor and this past weekend she passed away.

Life is short, my friends.

Make ugly (or not) homemade cakes for your children.
Roll out pie crusts with your daughter's crazily insufficient kitchen tools.
Have dinner together, especially on Sunday nights. And don't worry too much if a can of mushroom soup went into it.
It'll give you something to smile about when the need for smiling comes around.
It'll give you pictures to laugh at and memories to sigh at.
It'll give you life that can't be got back once it's gone.

A Gadget for Back to School

My kids started school this week.

While I was buying the hordes of school supplies necessary for their free public education, I saw this:





And I bought it. I wasn't sure how well it would work or how much my kids would like it.

Let me say this: My girls have only had bread in heart shapes since it got home. In other words, it's a huge hit. Not only that, but it really fits very well--meaning that it cuts off pretty much just the crust on a typical square shaped loaf (on the more rectangular loaves, it leaves a bit, but still not an excessive amount). My children remove crusts or anything that appears remotely crust-like from all their bread products, so this was a win for me. In fact, my kids are sometimes sloppy about their crust removal and end up taking off half the sandwich so this was even better than a win for me. If you have kids that eat their crusts, I envy and admire you. If not, buy this product, make your children feel loved, and be happy.

Now. I'd like to tell you that you should all buy it from Amazon because if about a trillion of you did that, then I'd make about 4% of a trillion dollars, which would pretty much take care of the rest of my life and would be very nice. But about those trillion readers.... As it is, I have a little less to lose when I tell you that I got mine at Walmart for $1.99 and that's a better deal (although if you buy it from Amazon you get 2, so that's not half bad either). You can't run a cheapskate blog without telling people these things. Go on, now, make a heart-shaped PBJ with no crusts. You only live once.

A Monthly Shopping List Template

Lately I've been trying to shop a little bit less. Partly this is because I believe I spend more money the more I shop, especially those "little" trips, where I just need to "grab a few things." Yet, over the summer the even larger reason I want to shop less is that I have 4 children at home with me and they do not want to go shopping. When they do end up going shopping, they want pretty much every brightly colored food that exists at their eye level. And you know what that means.

So I've been avoiding shopping. I've been trying to do a large monthly shopping trip with weekly milk/produce runs. Which requires a little planning. One of the things I've done is to create a huge master grocery list. It contains almost everything I could possibly need for that month. Which isn't to say I will be buying everything on that list. I plan to put the list in a sheet protector and then make a little dry erase check by each thing I need that month. The purpose of the list is to keep me from forgetting things. Because forgetting things is the main reason I end up going back to the store for whatever basic item I forgot. And 12 other things. And a cookie. Just kidding about the cookie part. Well, sometimes.

I realize my list might not work exactly for you, but it might give you a pretty good idea of where to begin if you also wish to shop less, but more efficiently.

PRINTABLE LIST

Pantry Stable Items:
Wheat
Whole Wheat
Sugar
Brown Sugar
Powdered Sugar
Tomato Sauce
Tomato Soup
Diced Tomatoes
Corn
Olives
Peaches
Nuts
Rice
Lentils
PB
Raisins
Evaporated Milk
Artichokes
Mayo/Mir. Whip
Ketchup
Mustard
Cocoa
Syrup
Salt
Oatmeal
Pasta
Cream of Wheat
Baking Soda
Baking Powder
Canola Oil
Pepper
Jam
Honey
Cereal
Chocolate Chips
Applesauce
Lemon Juice
Lime Juice
Tomato Juice

Dairy:
Milk
Mozzarella cheese
Cheddar cheese
Plain yogurt
Other yogurt
Butter
Sour Cream
Cream cheese
Cottage cheese
Ricotta cheese
Cheese sticks
Other cheese

Non-Food Items:
Band-aids
Dishwashing soap
Laundry Detergent
Toothpaste
Dental Floss
Toilet Paper
Paper towels
Bleach
Hand soap
Bar soap

Fruits/Vegetables We Like:
Grapes
Mangoes
Pineapple
Strawberries
Bananas
Apples
Oranges
Tangerines
Cucumbers
Broccoli
Spinach
Peaches
Plums
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Lemon
Lime

Freezer Items.Frozen Meat:
Bread
Chicken
Hamburger
Bacon
Juice Concentrate
Tortilla shells
Hot dogs
Fish

Meat We Need:
Eggs

Pets:
Cat food
Cat littler
Duck food

Fruits/Vegetables We Need:




Recipe Specific Items:

Five Things to Do with "Ends"

Just a few more ideas before I finish up with things I've learned from An Everlasting Meal.

First things first:

Ends, a definition: Bones, peels, skins, scraps, stems, and well, ends--the parts of the food you usually chop off and throw away.

Now what to do with them?

1. Compost them. This is the easiest thing for most of us to do if we have a garden.  If it was grown from the ground (as in NOT dairy or meat products) it can be composted. If you have a garden, but composting seems really daunting, check out this post.

2. Feed them to ducks or chickens. Okay, okay, I realize that this isn't the most practical thing for those of you without backyard livestock/ponds. But I did think it might be a fun thing to do on a picnic at a park. Just save those strawberry tops and broccoli stems and feed them to the ducks instead of the standard bread.

3. Make stock or soup. Many people (and by people I mean really frugal people) keep a bucket or Ziploc bag in the freezer with their ends. When they get enough, they cover them with water and boil until you can taste a vegetable/meat and it tastes like water and you can taste the stock and it tastes like vegetables/meat, meaning that all the goodness of the vegetables/meat has been transferred to the stock.

4. Use the water you've boiled vegetables in to water your plants. Or as the base for a stock instead of plain water. Adler actually stores her veggie waters in the fridge awaiting further use. I don't know if I'm that dedicated, but in the summer, I often use that water for my patio plants.

5. Use them in something else. I admit that this doesn't work for all types of ends. There's only so much you can do with onion skins for example. But many ends can be re-purposed. I admit that a lot of this is theory to me as I've never tried these things. However, I trust that giving a few a try would get our grandparents/great-grandparents smiling in their graves. Stems from herbs you used to garnish last night's meal can be used in a soup or casserole tonight. Animal (or sometimes vegetable) skins can be fried up (okay, gross, but that totally works for some people). Fat from stock can be used to saute your vegetables. Parmesan rinds can be used to flavor soup. Stale bread can be used to make croutons, bread crumbs, bread pudding, or any of a number of other bread based things. You get the idea. I admit that if you did this with everything, it could get a little exhausting. Or maybe not. Maybe if we learned to do this sort of cooking and did this with everything, we'd only have to go to the store once a month. And we'd always have something waiting for dinner.

The other day for lunch I had a bunch of broccoli stalks saved. I'd used the tree-like heads for various meals. The stalks had kept surprisingly well. One batch was about 2 weeks old and no different in firmness than the fresh bunch. So I decided to give my ends a whirl. I made them into matchsticks and roasted them. They were delicious and gave me a lunch side dish for 2 days. Then I chopped the leftover leaves and bits I'd peeled off and fed them to our ducks. I have to say I felt pretty good about it all.

Food Essay Friday: Four Cooking Instructions that Keep People From Cooking

I hate it when cooks make cooking seem daunting. It needn't be. At least the type of cooking that gets dinner on the table. Below are a few of my own pet peeves--things chefs sometimes say or do that make cooking seem so mysterious and perfectly undoable for the rest of us mortals.

1. Spoon your ingredients into your measuring cup. I don't know why I hate this instruction so very much. Oh wait, I do know. Because it's tedious and painstaking and--for most good recipes--completely unnecessary. I have been making cookies and cakes for a long time. They are very good. I have never spooned flour into anything and I never intend to. A good recipe can forgive a few extra or less grams of whatever. Dropping ingredients into a measuring cup spoonful by painful spoonful while some child grabs at my legs begging to help sounds like the type of thing the devil forces his minions to do for the rest of eternity (oh, and I and bet they burn their cookies every time too). It's also the type of thing that Yahoo articles love to include in their 'how to cook better' articles. (Why, yes, I am equating Yahoo cooking articles with Satan.) If you need to be intensely accurate in a recipe (and I'm going to maintain that you usually don't if you have a good recipe), buy a kitchen scale and weigh your ingredients.

2. Use 17 bowls. Okay, maybe that's not the exact instruction, but the point is that some recipes just seem to employ an inordinate amount of dishes. I admit that there's a place in life for a really stunning dish that requires several bowls, spoons, measuring implements, etc. But we should definitely save those recipes for the fancier things in life or at least a lazy Saturday afternoon. Chocolate chip cookies, 30 minute meals, and the like should never require that we spend two hours afterwards cleaning up our mess. Also, I'm much more willing to forgive a less-than-perfect dish that only required one bowl or pan than I am one that created a sinkful of dishes.

3. Wash your rice/lentils/beans 3 (or however many) times before cooking. I admit that there's a place for rinsing grains, but to do so over and over in a neurotically prescribed fashion makes me quacky. Rinse them once if need be. Or if you're feeling nice and anal, rinse them until the water runs clear.

4. Giving some oddly specific instruction and not explaining why--like being told to tie up your roast with twine. As though we all have twine just lying about. And why exactly are we tying it up--because it's going to get so tender that it will fall apart or what? There are jillions of mysterious cooking instructions in our cookbooks and on blogs. I don't mind doing something weird, but I'd like to be told why. That way I can decide if the twine (for example) is worth going out to buy or not. Without a wee bit of explanation, we're stuck wondering if our rebellion/laziness/cheapness is going to ruin a perfectly good recipe or not.

Thoughts on Scaling Up

Lately I've been rethinking this blog. I do that about every 6 months. That's because I make a whopping $40/year on this thing, which comes out to about a penny a day or approximately $.015/hour, which means it really needs to be fun and rewarding for me. It usually is, but lately...lately it's been starting to feel more like an obligation...to whom I'm not quite sure--to that force of the universe that pushes compulsive, goal/duty-driven people like me to keep their habits even if those habits aren't quite leading them to the places they exactly want to go. 

When I started this blog a year and a half ago, it was super fun for me. I didn't care if it was just my mom and sisters and friends viewing it becase I loved the writing, I loved the challenge of eating super cheap, and I loved the recipes/ideas I was posting each day. At that time, I was posting recipes that I'd tried several times and in several ways. These days I feel like I try something once and if it comes out pretty well, I post it. Let's take last Wednesday's Crock Pot Rotisserie chicken for example. The chicken was fine, the breasts were a bit dry, and I didn't much care for the rub. I posted it because I thought the idea was great and that with a few tweaks it would be perfect (and I posted it because I try to post every day and I needed something to post). Yet, I didn't give myself time to try the tweaks out. I had no idea if they would work or taste good. This is one thing I'd like to remedy in this blog. I think one reason the blog has started feeling ho-hum-do-I-have-to-do-this-today is that many of my greatest family recipes have been blogged and I've started blogging more and more recipes that are just circulating online--ones I've tried and liked, but that I haven't taken the time to make my own or to perfect. Thus, blogging starts to have a desperate feel to it. And I don't like it. I also don't like feeling like I "have" to post something even if it's not perfect when I'd rather be in the garden or hanging out with my kids or, heck, taking a nap. If I'm going to post, it has to be worth the exchange. And a dull post like yesterday's Leftover Tuesday just isn't. I've even noticed that posting is taking so much of my free time that I haven't had enough to plan my meals out well (oh, the irony) or work on other writing projects that are meaningful to me.

Consequently, I'll be making some changes to the blog. I'll most likely be posting less often, but in exchange I'll be posting the best of the best--recipes I've tried several times and loved and perfected or recipes that are truly bang-up winners or ideas I really think will benefit the lives of others. If I don't think something is a recipe or method I'll use over and over again, I won't be posting it. So even though you can expect fewer posts, you can expect better ones. You can also expect more ideas for using scraps and leftovers, and other tips for food frugality. I'm planning to keep Leftover Tuesday around, but only insofar as it continues to be fresh and fun and useful, not like, "Oh, yeah, and then I made soup again." I'll also be taking a day each week to call out incredible recipes that I've tried (I try quite a few, so I'm hoping this will be helpful to folks). I won't re-blog them, as I've been doing; I'll just link to them and say why I loved them so very much. In the distant future, once I've made them a jillion times and they've become my own, I may blog them, but only then. At the end of the month, I'll dedicate a post to the recipe I made this month (mine or someone else's) that was the very best recipe of the month. I'm hoping that all these changes will give readers really amazing ideas for food and frugality and not just a bunch of good, but not great, food information. 

In short, the blog will be scaling back, but in doing so I hope that it will also be scaling up. I hope that although it will have fewer posts, those posts will full of ideas and tips that are higher quality than what I've been turning out lately. And I hope it's funnier than it has been lately. And that people will read it and think that they've stumbled upon a Dave Barry post (I have every intention of naming a chicken--when we get them--after Dave Barry.) And I hope it will be more thoughtful that it sometimes is and that people will stumble upon it and think that Wendell Berry finally embraced modern technologies for all the thoughtfullness that's going on (I fully intend to name a chicken after Wendell Berry as well.) And finally--I hope that posts on this blog will be thoroughly successful and go completely viral and make me rich and famous, or at least rich and 10-minute famous. But mostly, mostly, I just hope it's more useful and fun for you and more useful and fun for me. Because that's what it was about in the beginning and that's what I hope it to be about always. 

Dare Dream Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream

Nope, that's not the title of a recipe (though it'd be a doozy of one, wouldn't it?).

It's the name of a new book authored by the lovely and talented Whitney Johnson, who also happens to be my aunt. Which is all wonderfully cool.

Even cooler (well, to me anyway): I've got an essay in the book. And it's about food. And this blog. Ta-Da.