Easter

Last year I got a wee bit concerned about the trend in Easter and it's accompanied marketing. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. This year, I went down to the dollar store and picked up a couple of items and some candy, but our main focus is on the why's of easter. Jesus death and resurrection, what that means to us as believers. Tonight we went to church and took communion. I started to explain to Sophie what the grape juice and crackers meant, but she looked at me and said "It stands for jesus blood and his skin". I don't think I knew what communion meant when I was seven. I am so glad we finally found a church that the family likes and that has good bible preaching. Well, going to sign off now. Just wanted to blog really quick and say Have a great resurrection day!

In Christ,

Chris

drumroll please...

brrrrr rum da da dum dum dum.....
I baked a loaf of bread...THAT ROSE. It is a whole loaf, not a two inch high door stop. I am so cocky i am thinking of trying for a whole wheat loaf of bread, if you can imagine. I go to pick up my angel food on March 28th. In the meantime I am going to be working on setting up a meal plan so I can take advantage of my food budget and make every dollar work for me. I have a 350 dollar food budget. That is for everything. Meat, cleaning supplies, pet foods, pantry staples, the whole shebang. So, on the first I take 120 dollars and buy four boxes of angel food (this is always for the following month, praise God that with our federal income tax return we were able to get ahead in this way) . Then I have 230 dollars left. I am planning on using 50 dollars to buy detergent, pet food, shampoos and personal grooming and toilet paper. I am going to have to give up my addiction to paper towels. I hear cheese cloth makes good window wash-ing equipment. anywho.....that will leave me with 180 dollars which I will spread over four weeks. That will be an additional 45 dollars a week to supplement the angel food. Which is why it is so important that I make menus. Otherwise I may end up buying things I just can't use. On second thought, maybe I should have a set amount of pantry stocking money as well. I am definitely going to need flour, sugar, oats etc. I will have to think some more. I will be working on my menus for the next few days. I will post as soon as i have them. I will also post my pantry and grocery totals for the first week. Maybe some of ya'll can use the information.
Well, have a great Saturday,
Talk at you all later,
Chris

My new freezer

Well, this may not seem frugal, but it will be in the long run. We went out and got a freezer this last week. I looked for a good while before settling on the one we did buy. It's a good size and we can put our angel food in it. We got three regular boxes and a special meat box, this coming month. This was only 113 dollars for ALOT of food. I have given myself a food budget of 350 dollars a month now. I think it's completely doable now that we have angel tree. I have a 50 dollar budget for animal food and soaps, shampoo and toilet paper etc. Which I also think is doable. I found 40 lbs of dog food for 20.40. Cat food for the month costs around 7.00. We can do this. We are going to take any extra income and use that as the Lord directs. We are going to pray over it and then talk about our needs and apply it that way. My kids have started wrapping up their left overs and placing them in the fridge. Waste not, want not. I am really starting to like saving money. I actually cringed the other day when I saw a lady pay a dollar thirty seven for a little pack of gum. It's the nickles and dimes that get you. Well, I think I will update my religion blog now. I have a lot to say lately. Talk at you all later. Oh, I am also blogging from home now. We ditched our cell phones and are currently using Vonage and high speed Internet. It is 25 dollars less a month than the cell phones alone. We have cut our phone bills, our car insurance, our food bill and many other items. It is incredible how much money you can save when you have to. I really feel badly for all the money wasted when we just weren't paying attention. God has given us every blessing, we should use each one wisely.
signing off,
Chris

Breader luck next time….

Okay, I attempted two batches of bread, the first rose two inches, the second about four inches. I looked it up on the internet and found out that if you don’t knead the bread enough, it won’t develop the appropriate carbon dioxide bubbles to adhere to the yeast. Therefore, the yeast will be dispersed into the air as opposed to getting trapped in the bubbles within the bread created by the carbon dioxide. Therefore, I will beat the bread for about ten minutes tomorrow and see what occurs. I also got a price quote online from progressive which states it is 60 dollars a month cheaper than geico. I am going to call on Monday to see if this is correct. If so, We will be switching to progressive. I dislike their social policy and their charitable structure, but we really have to cut back. This is a good area to cut expenses.
Poor Kate had to eat my bread today for lunch. She tried but ended up eating the ham and cheese from the sandwich and tossing the rest. If you think about things as they were long ago, the family really relied on the mother to be able to cook, clean, bake and sew. Our modern society looks down on these things and stay at home moms as archaic right now. However, I feel like in the current climate, with people making less, buying less and using less. Some of these skills will come back into fashion. Maybe there will be a return to home and family. I hope so.
Blogging from thriftland,
chris

week two, battle of the bread

Okay, so I bought energy efficient bulbs and baked some bread. I don't think the yeast activated as I hoped. I made dough gobs. (basically fried bread), and bean soup. It tasted good. However, when I tried to bake the second loaf and it didn't work. It only rose about three inches. Not enough to make a sandwich. I will try again tonight. I replaced twelve of our bulbs with energy efficient ones. I have stopped driving the van and filled up our car last night. I priced canned goods and stuff at walmart today. Great value is truly a great value...ba dum dump....sorry. lol.
68 cents per can on veggies. flour sugar and rice are all cheaper. I found a 40 pound bag of pedigree for $20.40. I am still working on our food budget. I am trying right now to get it down to three hundred. That way when my student loans come due in july I can have some money set aside to keep buying groceries in the three hundred dollar area. otherwise I will have less. I January of next year we can canel sbp and get an extra 124 dollars a month. We will also get a cost of living adjustment and our va waiver will go down. I just have to hold on for about six months. In total it will give us about 300 dollars extra. When you are this tight, that is a massive amount. well, hope all is well with you guys. talk at you next week.
chris
p.s. While I agree we don't need to be bashing our leaders, I think we as americans cannot allow our government to freely spend our and our childrens futures on not only frivolous things, but immoral things as well. It's one thing to spend money on shovel ready construction projects to put people to work, quite another to send hard earned tax dollars to mexico to fund the murder of the unborn. JMO.
God bless.

weekly frugal action update

Okay, just a quick stop by to say what it is I am doing today. Today I am buying energy efficient light bulbs and trying to find ways to cut down on water consumption before summer. If my husband is unable to go back to work for a long period of time, I am thinking of shelving our van and just using the car. That would save us 19 dollars a month. For some reason our electric bill was higher last month, so I am going to see what we can turn off or unplug at night to save some money. I can save money on gas by planning all my trips. I am going to see if I can’t change the oil in both vehicles myself. That would save us some money. I will look into car care seminars. They have them sometimes on post. So, I am going to look that stuff up today. Later tonight I am going to make some bread with my youngest. I think that I would like to buy more food from angel tree, I am just afraid some would go rotten, like the carrots. I Might just look up whether or not you can freeze eggs and carrots. If you can, then I can buy more. I am also going to look up where to buy food grade buckets around here. If I am going to save money I am going to have to cook more. So, here’s the list.
1.) Buy energy efficient light bulbs
2.) Plan our trips for the next two weeks for maximum efficiency
3.) Buy in bulk
4.) Check out the price of oil by the case.
5.) Make bread
6.) Internet research at the library on baking, soups, what you can freeze and the price of oil and oil filters and maybe general car maintenance.
It took me a while to realize how many prepackaged foods and services we take for granted. If you think about all the noodles, bread and pre made sauces you buy, you could probably really save a lot by buying whole food and processing it yourself. The sheer amount of paper towels I use could be cut in half. I really want to keep homeschooling and so don’t want to have to go to work, but if I have to, I would only want to work part time. While I am at the library, I would also like to look for word processing manuals so I can learn how to use word and excel better. Well, will sign off for now.
chris

angel food ministries

Well, on February 28th, I should be picking up my first supply of angel food food. If that makes sense. (by the way I am typing from the library). I will see how far it goes with my family, and make adjustments to my ordering accordingly. I noticed that the dollar movie theatre has movies for only 75 cents on tuesdays. That is cheaper than watching them at home from hollywood video. (bring your own snacks of course). Then right next door to the dollar theatre is this really nice used clothing store called plato's closet. It has high end clothing for sale (meaning things like tommy HIlfiger jeans for ten dollars and what not. I have a fifteen year old, so these things are important to her. I managed to get a deferment on my student loans, this frees up our food budget a bit and gives tim more time to get back on his feet. I have been watching our government spend money like it's going out of style. I am not sure people even realize that we are going to have to pay this all back. I was listening to John Hagee the other day and he was talking about how much we are spending. He said "If you opened a business at the birth of Christ, and lost 1 million dollars A DAY from then until today, you would have to continue losing 1 million dollars a day for another seven hundred years to spend or lose a trillion dollars. Our government is currently 12 trillion dollars in debt. That is scary. I fear inflation is on the way, inflation that could make it incredibly difficult for people to buy food or live. America needs to be on its knees praying for our politicians, and many of our people, to repent and begin the long hard process of paying what we owe.
We need to be praying for our president and congressional leaders to bite the bullet and make some very real, very hard decisions...or life will make it for them.
Till next Tuesday,
chris