Combatting The Economy- A Mother's Way

Busy Bee Change Purse

I have been thinking a lot about how to save money. Actually, not just lately, I have been for a few years now. I don't know of anyone that I come in contact with that isn't concerned about the rising prices on just about everything and the looming fear of loosing jobs in this troubled time.

I am among those that are fortunate enough to be able to stay home with my children and hold down the fort. Sometimes, it feels like that fort is being attacked from all directions and it is easy to become discouraged. As a homemaker, it is my job to make the best with what we have and stretch those pennies. As time has went by, I have discovered very like minded individuals across this country that are trying to do the same. I thought that it would be good to pass on this list of helpful websites and blogs that have helped me here and there over the years and a few things that we have done to save some money.

You might have already read my tutorial on how to make homemade cloth napkins. I know what you are thinking, that is something tiny as far as saving money. But, hey, every little bit adds up. If you think hard enough, you will come up with a lot of things that you could do to save some cash for a rainy day.

• One major thing that we have found is that if you can buy and store anything in bulk, you will save a lot. Buying in bulk may not be cost effective or even practical for small families but for our family of 6, it is practical- very practical. In our society, we have all kinds of options available for buying in bulk. Most people don't have to drive far to find a Costco, BJ's (I miss BJ's- they are closing), or Sam's Club (all here in the southeastern United States). I'm sure you could add more to the list from where you live. The main thing to remember is that if you shop at a large warehouse store, do you shop there enough to justify the membership fees? Our local BJ's Wholesale Club practically knew us by sight as we visited almost every week. So, our membership fee made sense to us. Had we only shopped there once or twice a year, the membership fee would be a waste of money.

• If you have a large family, take advantage of Food Co-ops. Years ago, I thought food co-ops were groups of paranoid people that were afraid of food sold in retail stores. I pictured everyone wearing flip flops and long hair. Why I thought that, I have no idea but I have changed my perspective of people buying from co-ops. As a matter of fact, I am now one of those that buy from a food co-op about once a year. I can't find a good co-op on my side of the states so I buy my wheat from Azure Standard. They are awesome as far as a tremendous variety of products available at a reasonable price. I would buy more from them but I can't justify the expensive shipping fees that they charge to get my product shipped all the way from Oregon.

• Take advantage of your local farmer's markets and stands. My great uncle farmed all of his life and sold his produce to neighbors, friends, and the local grocery store (back in the 60's and 70's- stores bought from local farmers from the trunk of their car). Why, you don't travel far down any street in the summer time and not see a sign posted telling you of produce for sale somewhere nearby. Right off of the top of my head, I can think of a farm up the street from me and a huge barn that sells fruits and vegetables in the summer time not more than 5 minutes from my house. You will see that buying local is not only good for the local economy, the food tastes better as it is fresher- not to mention the better nutrition that you will get from that locally farmed food.

• Don't stick to just one grocery store to buy all of your food. Shop around. Look at sales papers. Check grocery web sites. If you are coupon savvy- which I am not-, clip, print, trade, and save coupons. I won't go into the coupon thing but I'll list some great sites to help you get started if that is your thing.

• Plant a garden. You would be surprised as to how a few extra vegetables coming into the house makes a difference on a grocery budget. We still are eating off of the corn on the cob that we put up last summer. it has made a difference in helping to save money. I have free corn- the grocery store has corn that is sometimes over $1.00 an ear! Two of my kids can eat three ears a piece. Add that up and you will see that it would cost me over $10.00 just to buy corn on the cob for one meal from the grocery store!

• If you are crafty and can justify the cost of supplies, make something to sell on the side. I opened an etsy shop to sell baby quilts online and things just kind of grew from there. A person does have to put down ground rules before venturing into a business. Establish how much you want to spend on materials and keep an eye on your profit. If you are going "in the hole" by running your business, then it is just not worth it. I had a monetary goal to make every month from the sales in my shop and so far (this month not included), I have reached that goal. Keeping an eye on the big picture is a must as far as determining if something is worthwhile to pursue or not.

Having said way more than I had intended to, here is a list of helpful places that can help you save some money, eat healthier, maybe make some money, and overall, combat the scary economy.


The Family Homestead - My most favorite site in the world. Crystal Miller led me on an adventure in homemaking and I have learned so much from her.

The Nourishing Gourmet - Recipes and information on feeding your family nourishing foods

Janes 4 girls $800.00 annual budget- Where a single mom of three feeds her family on only $800.00 a year. She shows step by step and purchase by purchase as to how and what she gets using sales, coupons, rebates, and other freebies. (this is a great site but is slow to load on my computer)

Money Saving Mom- Advice and information on stretching the grocery budget, recipes, encouragement, coupons, and freebie deals. She also lets you know of the weekly CVS deals and has a link on how to play the CVS game and get free stuff from CVS.

A Year of Crockpotting - An awesome blog where one lady makes a dish in her crock pot everyday of the year.

Hillbilly Housewife - Recipes and information on feeding your family frugally.

SueGregg- Recipes and information on healthy eating- check out the blender waffle recipe- they are the best things you will ever put in your mouth- (except chocolate.....)

Heavenly Homemakers - One woman's daily musings on how she feeds her family healthy and nutritious meals- has lots of recipes and information.

Passionate Homemaking - An encouraging site for healthy recipes and products that you can make yourself (ie: homemade deodorant).

Organizing Junkie - Just what it says- helps you to become more organized and offers tips and information for running your household.

Azure Standard- A Food Co-op in Oregon that has almost any natural food that you could think of.

Whole Foods Market- My most favorite grocery store in the world. Shop there and you will see why I say that.

Etsy - One of the most popular places online to sell hand made items

This list could go on and on. I just wanted to give you somewhere to start if you are looking to save some money this year. It takes some work but after awhile, saving becomes second nature.

Please feel free to let me know of your favorite sites to combat the economy in the comments. I love finding new places to learn more.....

And for those of you that were expecting some silliness-
I promise that I will be back to my old self again soon.
I'm off to see what's outside my windows -
but first, I need some chocolate ......

Thinking of Spring

May it rain on your garden this summer

Last year, my brother planted a garden. We hung around his place a lot last summer. No, not for the produce. We were bushhogging (on and off) and digging around in our storage container. It is funny, we still didn't get the field completely bushhogged. (is "bushhogging" just a southern term?) Anyway, we had a lot of picnics, ate all kinds of berries and nuts, put some major milage on the go-cart, and watched the building of the outhouse. (I'll let you know more about the outhouse another day- it is quite a story)

He (my brother) came by the other day and mentioned gardening. It got me thinking about planting one and what in the world we would need to plant the most of. Farming is in our blood you see. Most of my ancestors were farmers like a lot of people's ancestors from the part of our world. Sometimes, the sight of a seed catalog makes the pulse race and unfortunately, the pocket book shrink. My brother (or Uncle Bubba as he is frequently called), already has a plan as to what seeds he is going to purchase. He asked what we wanted to plant and he would order it with his. I stood there with that "deer and car light" look. I had not thought about it but it is time to do it.

I guess I'll be spending some spare time figuring out what we use the most and go with that. I have to be practical and think ahead to the end of the summer- you know, harvest time. Harvest time makes me very, very nervous. Why do I get nervous at the thought of harvesting goodies? Hence the picture you will now see:

Fire Ants! They are evil. They want to hang around in the pea patch and bite your fingers as you pick each pod. They like to hover under each corn shuck as you pluck it from the stalk. Biting unsuspecting feet, ankles, fingers, and whatever else they can get to is their ambition in life when they infest your garden spot. They are the reason harvest time makes me nervous.

Now that I have my complaining over with, back to the point. I have to think ahead and not plant to many fire ant inducing vegetables. So far, I know they love corn and clay peas. Hummmmm, what to plant? A better question: How do you run fire ants out of the garden?

......Stay tuned as I plan to bring you some hilarity from the garden as spring and summer arrive......

If you haven't noticed it by now, if you scroll down to the very bottom of this blog, you will see a cute little YouTube box. Click to start it and you will see a little "diddy" about fire ants.

A Wordless Wednesday

Remaking an old favorite- The Peanut Butter Sandwich

A nice bowl of hard spring wheat- the makings for... a peanut butter sandwich?

Sometimes, at my house, we do things the hard way. Today, you will see that what I just said, is so, so true. Over the past year, I estimate that I have fixed approximately 350 lunches- give or take a few. Add that to the 350 or so breakfasts and 350 or so suppers and you will get the idea that we don't go out to eat very much. Truthfully, we don't eat "quick" pre-packaged foods either. What does this all add up to? I pretty much live in my kitchen.

Feeding my family wholesome and most importantly healthy foods is a labor of love for me. The meal that drives me crazy is lunch. There are only so many times that you can eat sandwiches, soups, leftovers, etc. To put it nicely, the kids get sick of their choice of lunch items.

In the past, if you mention peanut butter sandwiches around here, one or more kids quickly said they are not the least bit hungry, ran to the cabinet, and started scavenging for something else.

Fast forward to the present: The peanut butter sandwich now has been totally remade at my house. No longer is there scavenging at the mention of America's staple sandwich spread.

Here is what we did (the hard way) that has changed the PB & J forever:

The ingredients:

• Fresh flour tortillas
  
• Peanut Butter
• Applesauce
• Honey
  

We started with an idea (and the realization we were out of bread) of making flour tortillas to spread the peanut butter on. With the flour container empty, the trusty, old hand cranked flour grinder was brought out and set up. Everyone loves grinding grain (for the first 3-4 minutes only) and argues over who gets to grind first. If you are not out of flour like I was, just get your trusty bread flour out. (Mental note: I want an electric grinding mill for Mother's Day)

Here is the first grind. The grain was quite rough so we ground it two more times.

Flour Tortilla ingredients:

• 3 cups fresh whole wheat flour (if purchasing flour, use bread flour)
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 1 teaspoon salt (sea salt is best but not necessary)
  
• 6 Tablespoons shortening (I use organic palm oil)
• 1-1/4 cup warm water
  

Mix the salt and baking powder into the flour. Add the shortening and cut in using a pastry cutter. Continue to cut in the shortening until the mixture has the consistency of pea-sized clumps. At this point, mix in most - but not all- of the water. Mix together and add additional water as needed to get the consistency of biscuit dough. Transfer the dough to a surface and knead for a few minutes. You only need to knead the dough until it is well mixed and smooth. At this point, divide the large lump into lots of smaller balls about 2 inches in diameter. (You can make them smaller or larger but the idea is to have enough to make into a normal sized tortilla).

Divided dough balls

Let the dough balls rest for about 10 minutes. If you roll them out without letting them rest, they will be unruly and difficult to manage. No one wants unruly dough balls.

Sorry that I don't have a picture but next, use a rolling pin to roll the individual small dough balls into a circle. If you are lucky enough to have a tortilla press, now is the time to use that handy gadget! (mental note: I want a tortilla press- ask for one for Mother's Day).

Cooking Tortillas on the Griddle- (and yes, I know they are not perfectly round- cut me some slack please....)

Cook the tortillas for a few minutes on a hot griddle. Flip and cook the other side until both sides have a faint browning. (My griddle is set at 350 degrees). Don't over cook as you still want the tortilla to be soft enough to roll up.

It is at this point, I do not have any pictures of the assemblage of the sandwiches because they were gobbled up faster than I could run to get the camera.

Mix peanut butter and a desired amount of honey together. Spread an even layer of the peanut butter/honey mixture on the entire surface of one side of a tortilla. Spread a thin layer of applesauce over the peanut butter/honey mixture. Start on one side of the tortilla and roll toward from one side to the other. You should have a cute rolled up peanut butter sandwich when you are done.

Stand back and watch the "sandwiches" or roll ups disappear as quickly as you make them!

So there you have it. The peanut butter sandwich was remade at my house. I wonder how long it will take before the kids get sick of these? Maybe I have awhile ......

So What's Your Crafting Addiction?

Here are the four objects I use the most. (I've entered every pin cushion giveaway that I come across and have yet to win one. For now, my sorry tomato will just have to do.....)

Everyone I know has their own little craft that they love. Crafting of anything gives a person a sense of accomplishment and lets one's mind steer off into another direction away from the stress of the day. Don't you agree?

I like to sew amongst other things. My favorite thing to sew is a quilt. Time, however, is usually against me when it comes to quilting. There are only 27 - 30 hours in a day -for a mother- right?

I learned to sew on a machine (and by hand) back in middle school in a home economics class and later in high school. Thank you Mrs. Huecker and Mrs. Renner where ever you two are.

My grandmother made quilts for all of her grand children and we all thought that having one of grandma's quilts was one of the greatest things that could possibly happen to a kid (OK, I did- I don't know how everybody else felt about it). I started making quilts for my kids a few years ago and I have promised to make one for each member of my family. Other than my kids, only my brother has received his quilt. I'll get to the others eventually, I hope.

I lack a great deal of patience when it comes to quilting however. My sister in law can hand quilt all day long and it doesn't faze her a bit. Me, I panic and then avoid the situation all together. As a matter of fact, the wall hanging I made in my kitchen was pieced by me (with the machine no doubt) and my sister in law graciously asked if she could hand quilt it (probably because she knew I would never quilt it by hand). You know already what my answer was! Hand sewing doesn't scare me really. I just can't sit for hours concentrating on one thing. I have to move around, I have to cook, I have to cook, I have to cook....oh, sorry- cooking is what my kids just think I should be doing all of the time- not sewing.

So there you have it. I sew (on a machine 99% of the time). Give me my sorry tomato pin cushion, my scary rotary cutter, the most awesome pair of scissors on the face of the earth, and my old trusty Kenmore any day. So, what are you addicted to?

I have a thing for horses. But I guess you might have figured that out already.

I've been hanging around barns (and flies) for some 25 years (has it really been that long?) The responsibility of raising my family keeps me in check so I don't get to spend as much time with four legged critters as much as I used to. Not that it is a bad thing. It is just that at this point and time, my "human" babies need me more.

Pictured above in my banner, beside my littlest one, is my first horse; Orion's Stardust or "Dusty" to put it plain and simple. Dusty is a registered Arabian. Dusty is also very, very, old in horse years. On April 1st, 2009, Dusty will turn 31 (human) years old. I can't believe it myself. I have come to the realization that Dusty might not live another year or so but I comfort myself in knowing that he has lived a pretty interesting life and thanks to my sister who know takes care of him everyday, he will leave this world, well fed.

I don't know the history of Dusty's early years other than he was born in Pickens county, South Carolina and at some point in time, was in more than one Arabian horse show. Just to let you in on a few things; Dusty is a goof ball and therefore, I don't imagine he went very far in any Arabian shows (hence him being sold to us in the first place I would suppose). Dusty also doesn't like men- they make him nervous (ask my uncle what happens when a man rides my horse- he will tell you quite an interesting "rodeo" type story). Dusty was abused at one point in his life and I would imagine, he is leery of men (especially those with lunge whips) because of that abuse. Dusty also has this head swinging habit and that nervous balking thing that he does when something doesn't quite look right to him. He is talented in an odd since of the word. When he was seven, he could count how old he was by pawing his foot on command. One of the strangest things he can do-but only when his nerves are torn to shreds- is dance. A few of the family has witnessed his prancing in place. It makes me wonder if he did dressage in those horseshows....

When he was boarded at a barn, early on in my horse ownership, someone let him drink out of an aluminum can and he has loved canned drinks ever since. His favorite is Dr. Pepper but any soft drink will do. (If you don't have a can, he will daintily drink from a plastic cup as well). As I think back, he has eaten a lot of weird stuff for a horse. Right off of the top of my head, he loves moon pies, pecans, M&M's, Hershey bars, mulberries, strawberries, and once gobbled up an entire Whopper from Burger King- completely by accident. (He was faster than I was and woofed my dropped burger down before I could pick it up). In his old life now, he loves the loaves of bread that my mother treats him to every day. He has her spoiled by the way. He neighs, paces the fence, and gets her attention if she is late in tossing the daily treat. I'd imagine he is dreaming of warmer weather, loaves of bread, and mulberries right now.

Dusty has carried me through a lot of dark times as my very best friend. I stopped riding him some 14 years ago or so and he is in full retirement now. I guess that is why he has lasted so long. He now spends his days relaxing and doing his favorite thing- Eating.


Here are a couple of my "horsey" related favorites from The Schooling at Home Estians and The South Carolina Etsy Street Team. Make sure and click on their shop names to go to their shops and see some more of their beautiful work!

This beautiful print is from Farmgirldesigns

These beautiful prints are available from Rachelsstudio.

A Rare Occurrence in Our Neck of the Woods

If you look really, really, really, really, close, you can see what I saw on Sunday, January 18th, 2009 (I must record that exact date in case we never see this sort of thing again). I would imagine the weather man was celebrating -as for once, because he got it right. The sad part is, the kids had hoped he got it wrong. Trusty old weather man said that we would get snow flurries. That is exactly what we got. Trusty old weather man said it wouldn't last long. He was right. Trusty old weather man said it would turn to rain. He was right again. (Boo hoo). Hey, it was the weekend. A little snow in the south wouldn't be too bad a thing would it?

This is all it amounted to. A dusting....... (boo hoo). I do know of a few kids that made the best of it. A few flakes landed on a tongue or two. There was that big bike accident (sorry there are no pictures). I know a young boy that discovered that if you ride across snow covered gravel on a bicycle and slam on brakes, you wreck (and you ruin a good pair of pants in the process).

The snow came and went (boo hoo again). It's amazing how much excitement snow can cause around these parts.

For those of you that see snow all of the time, it was a big deal that South Carolina got to see the white stuff. Usually, we are blessed with freezing rain and power outages that last way longer than they should (don't get me started on this one).

I guess I'm happy for the hour long flurries (maybe it wasn't even that long). At least we don't forget what snow looks like when we get to see it every once and awhile.

Look What's New at Minnie Mae's Etsy Shop....

Leave it to my hubby to come up with something totally out of the blue that is associated with his favorite obsession; computers. As you see above, we just listed this awesome desk clock made from a crackled cd. It is a quartz analog with....get this....a snooze button. Gotta love a snooze button, huh? He has plenty more that he is cranking out but we wanted to see what people thought before he went totally wild.

Here it is standing up. He strategically placed a blue granite stone behind the clock to give it stability or "stand- up ability". Can you guess how hard it is to photograph a shiny surface like this? You don't want to know how many pictures were taken to get these two shots!

If you are interested in purchasing one of these clocks, go here. If not, go here anyway (pretty please).

I have a feeling that he has caught the Etsy bug so stay tuned....