Goals or Resolutions?

I'm not a big fan of New Years resolutions.  Especially the generic ones that get broken by January 2nd.  When the government passes a resolution, we all know it's pretty meaningless.  I do have some goals that I'm working for this year however (some of them are kind of generic, but I like having lots of things on my to-do list because then I have more to cross off- especially when I would have done those things anyway)...

Suburban Homestead Goals:

Help my Mister build a safer chicken coop, and order new chicks in the spring.
Bug my Mister until he builds a beehive (before the bees arrive in april).
Learn how to take care of the bees, and harvest the honey.
Learn about things I can use beeswax for.
Grow and can as much produce as possible.

Other Goals:
Learn to ride my bike outside without falling over or crashing into anyone/anything.
Learn to fix a flat/change a tire
Run a marathon.
Spend less than we earn.
Build our savings.
Get rid of clutter (have a garage sale at some point).
Clean365
Find ways to spend meaningful time with each kid everyday.
Do one nice thing for my Mister everyday (even if it's just making the bed)
Try to shop local first.
Plan ahead for dinner.

Eating from the Pantry Challenge Summary

It's been an interesting month of eating. For the most part, I'd say we ate pretty normally, we were more careful about how many eggs we used (which wouldn't have been an issue at ALL, if our chickens were laying....) and we didn't drink big glasses of milk as often as we might have had we not been trying to make it last.

Our total money spent on groceries for the month of January was $92. That's quite a bit over the planned $60, however, 15 of that was to replenish my son's lunch money account (he eats school lunch one day a week), and that doesn't come out of our regular grocery budget. That puts us pretty close to $15 over budget, which is how much we spent on wheat. After years of storing hundreds of pounds of wheat, we've finally used all of it up, and didn't pay enough attention to our supplies.

Some thoughts from this experiment:
I need to store powdered milk- if I used it in baking more often, I wouldn't need to buy as much milk, and also would be covered in case of emergency.

I also learned that it's really useful to have eggs around. I might look into powdered eggs for use in baking- as a back up for times when our chickens are not earning their keep.

Limiting trips to the grocery store made a big difference in how much I spent. I've been in the habit of going shopping every week, but have discovered if I buy an extra gallon (or even half gallon) of milk, that we do just fine going longer in between.

I've missed fresh produce. While I bought some at the grocery store (3 times during the month), it really wasn't enough. My parents shared some apples and pears that they received as a gift. But today as my Mister finished up a race, and approached the table with bananas, bread and gatorade, I had a "I NEED a banana moment". I'll be looking into joining a food coop again for fruits and vegetables, we've done one in the past and really enjoyed the variety.

I'm thrilled to have some extra grocery money this month to split between our camper fund (which is where the wheat money will come from), and The Road Home.

Our list of things that are needing some serious restocking has grown pretty long this month, so it will be interesting to try to resupply over the next couple of months without killing my grocery budget. (I admit to having thoughts of using part of our tax return to shore up our food storage....).

Eating from the Pantry Challenge

Crystal, from Money Saving Mom is holding a "Eat from the Pantry Challenge" where she's encouraging others to participate in a month-long stint with little to no grocery shopping. She encourages everyone to look at their pantries and figure out what works for them. My Eat From the Pantry Challenge will look like this:

1-Only 3 trips to the store in January, for dairy products and fresh produce, with a total grocery budget of $60 for the month. Because of my milk issues, the majority of that budget will go to buying the more expensive milk that my crazy brain insists on. We'll also eat out once during the month, but dining out money comes from a different budget than our grocery budget.

2- Not included in the three trips is our regular trip to costco for stocking up on basics (we didn't go in december, and are running low on important things like TP), and also trips to Rite Aid (I'm not counting Rite Aid, because I don't spend "new" money there anyway, it's all recycled rebates from earlier trips).

3- The money I save on groceries will be split in half, with the first half going to the Road Home Shelter in Salt Lake, and the other half being added to our camper savings fund.

Do you have a stocked pantry? If so, join in the fun! Jessica from Utah Deal Diva is also taking part in the challenge, check out her blog to see amazing pictures of her pantry and freezer (I think she could go for several months!).

The Spending Bug

Sometimes when I'm disappointed about something, or bored, or for any other unknown reason, I get the urge to spend money. My preferences are ebay, ksl classifieds, and shade clothing.

I'm doing really well sticking to my budget so I can save up for a new washing machine (mine is still dying slowly), then save for a new car (we're looking at a Rav4 in 4 years, unless something better comes along). The long-term things I'd like to save for are somewhat helpful to avoid online shopping binges, but don't get rid of them altogether.

Currently I'd like to buy some bulk legos on ebay for the kids for christmas, and some wood working tools for A for his birthday or christmas, a bike from ksl classifieds for J, plus the Kiva micro loans are a little addicting, so it's not like I'm wanting to spend money on wasteful things. I guess when I can get those things they'll be even more meaningful.

How do you avoid online shopping binges?

Sacrifice

My Mr. sold his motorcycle yesterday. He loved that motorcycle, and I know how difficult it must have been for him to let someone else drive it away, knowing that he won't be able to go on rides with his brothers anytime soon. It was actually even hard for me, which I didn't expect. A teenage boy is the new owner, and I kept wondering if he would take good care of "El Diablo". I felt the same way when we sold our pet Ferris the Ferret (ferrets do NOT make good pets for babies or small children). It's easy to get attached to things.

There are several things which led us to decide that selling the bike was a good idea. Here they are, in no particular order...

1.) My Mr. would like a new bike (the blue one pictured is his current dream bike, and is making the sale of the old bike easier to deal with) at some point, and this is a good time of year to sell motorcycles, and his old bike was still new enough that if we sold it now, we'd still get a pretty good price for it.

2.) Having a baby has been more expensive than we expected, and it came down to canceling some camping trips to pay the hospital bill or selling the motorcycle. We all decided it would be better to not have a motorcycle for a year or so and still go camping than to have a motorcycle that you can't ever take anywhere.

3.) My Mr. is currently in school and isn't able to ride his motorcycle much. He hadn't started the bike since february when he went to Moab with his brothers, so it didn't make sense to keep it around when he just doesn't have time to ride.

He may be going through a mourning period, but he'll be okay. I'm grateful that he was willing to sell it (it was even his idea...), and that his priorities are in the right place.

Authorized User

Today was my "errand running" day. The kids were at kindergarten and play group, so it was just the baby and I (which always makes for easier errand running). I stopped by my Mr.'s place of employment so he could sign a couple of checks that were made out to him so that I could deposit them. Usually, I just sign the checks and deposit them (since it's a joint account, the credit union doesn't mind (unless you are trying to deposit a tax refund check- then they get all obnoxious about it)). Today, one of the checks was a rebate check from our credit card, and I could only cash it at costco, so I figured I'd be safe and have my Mr. sign it, even though our credit card is a joint account...

They wouldn't let me cash it- even though he had already signed it and both our names were on the account. Things like that make me mad. I can understand if my name wasn't on the account, but hello!

Before I got married, I had a Discover card. When Mr. and I got married, I sent a form in to add him to my account. Guess what happened... Discover Card cancelled my account and signed us up for a new one with him as the primary account holder and me as an "authorized user". Unfortunately I hadn't memorized my old number- and didn't realize what they had done until I had been using the new card long enough that I had the number memorized- who wants to have to memorize a whole new number again.

Yes, it's true, my Mr. earns all of the money we live off of, but I'm the one who pays the bills and buys groceries and generally keeps our lives running smoothly, so I don't really think I ought to be relegated to the status of "authorized user". My Mr. (who is a smart man) agrees with me and feels appropriate outrage over the whole thing.

From now on, when we sign up for something, we're using my name first.

How much will you pay?

Several weeks ago I got an email forward from my Mr's very sweet little grandfather telling us not to buy gas yesterday (the 15th) because we were going to boycott gas that day and force prices down. My Mr's cousin hit reply-all and said "won't we just fill up on the 16th?".

Sad but true. According to today's Tribune, the "boycott" wasn't well supported... Boycotting gas stations for one day does absolutely nothing to bring the price of fuel down. Because, as my Mr's cousin said, we'd just fill up the day after.

I'd like to suggest a more effective boycott. Instead of not filling up on one specific day, how about cutting your gas consumption in half. Walk or ride your bike more. Plan trips in the car so that you can get all your errands done at once. Don't drive unless you have to. Maybe it won't do much to bring prices down (I, like Doug Wright "Don't understand the oil business..") but it will save some money.

My Mr. has been riding his bike and pulling our 5-year-old in the bike trailer every morning to go to school. I've been walking with the baby in the front-pack and the 3-year-old in the stroller, to pick him up in the afternoon. My Mr. has been riding his bike to work every day that he can (his truck is a company vehicle and sometimes they need it for work stuff). Instead of going to the store "real quick" to pick up something, I'm doing without until I have a bunch of errands to run at once- I'm hoping to limit outings like that to once a week or less.

My prediction is $4/gallon this summer. Is that enough to make you change your driving habits? (and I'm really wishing I owned a diesel or hybrid right now...)

So much for food...

A few months ago, after my Mr. turned 30, our health insurance premium went up by $70/month. Now it's going up another $70. It's ridiculous, especially since I am one of the lucky ones. At least I have insurance, and can pay for it (although it's starting to hurt). We've had our current insurance for less than 3 years, and our monthly premium has nearly doubled. If this keeps up, we're not going to be able to afford it anymore.

Maybe more of us need to get angry about our lousy health care system and insist on some sort of health care reform?

Write your elected officials. Please.

(really, it's enough to make me become a one-issue voter- Barack Obama says he'll get universal healthcare going if he's elected....)

My Brother and the Shenpa

My brother is in an interesting position in life. He's trying to figure out what to do to support his family. Should he do something to make a lot of money? Should he do something to help others? I think Ideally, he'd like to do both (although maybe money is not so important to him....). I'd imagine he'd like to provide comfortably for his family.

Here's a really good post on his blog about money.

I want my money.

Check out his other posts too. I've really been enjoying his new blog.

Go Canada!

One of my Canadian friends mentioned how, in their federal budget, there will be extra fees attached to the purchase of new "gas guzzling" automobiles, and rebates on purchases of fuel efficient vehicles (not just hybrids either).

Hooray for a government that is getting it right! An article I found on the CBC Website says that it will hurt families who don't have a choice when it comes to smaller vehicles. I find it hard to believe that families HAVE to choose SUV's. Our minivan doesn't get the best mileage in the world, but it is not too much worse than a regular sedan.

It makes me glad to see a government holding those who want to drive large vehicles that waste resources financially responsible for their excess instead of trying to punish people who can't afford to drive new cars, which from what I can understand is what the Tailpipe Tax would do.

I would agree that imposing higher taxes on cars with higher emission levels would be good for the air, perhaps people would be more careful about taking care of their cars and driving cleaner cars, except that it seems to me, that people who drive older cars do so because that's what they can afford.

In for the long haul...

Several months ago, I discovered gdiapers and posted about them on my blog. I decided that they would work great with cloth inserts instead of the flushable inserts, and that not only would diapering the new baby be more earth-friendly, but it would also be more budget-friendly.

Since then, my fear of cloth diapering and my Mister's lack of enthusiasm over the idea (will I have to change the poopy ones?) kind of sent me back to the do-nothing-different approach, which meant disposables because I can buy them at the grocery store (or costco) and that is much easier than buying something online (I hate paying for shipping).

A few weeks ago my sister gave me a baby gift which included a starter set of gdiapers. If I had those, it would be silly not to use them, so pushed into action, I ordered 2 dozen prefold diapers and a couple more covers (and I got free shipping! Ha!).

I also ordered a toddler-sized cloth diapering package, since if I'm washing cloth diapers for one baby, I might as well wash cloth diapers for two-plus I'm hoping that my three-year-old will decide that it's uncomfortable to actually feel wet and decide the toilet isn't so awful after all.

I've been researching cloth diapering ever since the first package of newborn-sized covers arrived in the mail, and I've learned that you don't necessarily have to dunk and swish in the toilet (a huge plus in my book). Newborn poop "washes out like yogurt" (good to know, but I might not be making yogurt anymore...) and there are these cool flushable liners that you can use for solid-food-eating infants....

My Mr. is an easy going sort of person, and recognizes a good deal when he sees one. We've been spending approximately $30/month on diapers for the last three years (double that if you count child #1). That is $1080 spent on diapers. That we throw away. We figure for cloth diapers, we will spend approximately $350 total. I've already spent about $175 but that is on small sized diapers and the biggest sized diapers we will need, so I think the $350 is being generous. That's $730 difference! Imagine what I could buy with that! (My Mr. is imagining motorcycle stuff, and we'll let him imagine whatever he wants as long as he changes plenty of diapers)

Buyer's Remorse (The Costco Version)

I just put two wild-thing boys to bed. I'm hoping they stay there and maybe even fall asleep before morning. To settle my nerves I had a (small) dish of vanilla bean ice cream with too much chocolate syrup. It was good, and relaxing, and I'm feeling much better (although I am shivering under my blanket and may need to go warm up my heating pad).

The bad news is that the ice cream is almost gone. And there won't be any more until March. The problem is Costco. I allow myself one "big" shopping trip a month and other trips are only for things like milk (and maybe some sort of fruit or lettuce or something like that, but that's it, really!). This month (I actually went January 28th and decided to count it for February since I had already been in January) I spent way too much. It's a common problem with shopping at Costco. It's nearly impossible to get out the door with less than $100 worth of groceries (unless you only buy milk), and it is much too easy to spend quite a bit more than that.

The last trip, I (and my Mr) spent nearly the entire month's grocery budget. Then Winegars had a case-lot sale of sorts (which I find impossible to resist) and there went the rest of the grocery budget. My Mr. has challenged me to make it through the entire month without buying anything else but milk. That means once the current jumbo-costco-sized bag of lettuce is gone, no more salads. Sadly, that also means no more ice cream.

The good news is that from our recent food-shopping-sprees, we are well stocked and since this is a short month, we'll probably survive. I need to make yogurt though (and some hermits) so that I don't feel too deprived.

Number Three

I mentioned a while back that we had had two semi-big financial drains (right before christmas!) hit us, and that I was worried about what the third thing would be (since bad things happen in three's). Well, we got home from visiting family and discovered that our furnace wasn't working (right after christmas too!). We got it fixed fairly quickly- we were wearing extra layers for about a day, so it could have been worse. One of the motors died.

There's number three. Hopefully we can take it easy now.

I read somewhere that you should save 1% of your home's value each year to pay for repairs and things. Not a bad idea. If I didn't have to pay so much more in taxes this year, I might be able to do that! :)

Rearranging the household budget is one of my favorite activities (I already said that I was weird) so this will be interesting to try to work in... Better to be prepared than surprised.

Holding my breath for number 3 to hit.

Warning: This post may contain random ramblings...

"They" (whoever "they" are) say that bad things happen in threes. Well, we've replaced the front tires on the van, and now our fridge is on the brink of death, I'm afraid of what might happen next...

Hopefully whatever is wrong with our fridge is covered by warranty (which runs out the end of this month, so good timing eh?), we'll find out this afternoon when the repairman arrives. Currently the freezer food has all been moved out to the outdoor freezer, but the fridge food has no where to go. It's cool, but I'm not sure if it's cold enough. The milk tasted a little "less than crisp (can milk taste crisp?) but I have milk-tasting issues anyway so it's probably fine.

Speaking of number 3. no we don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet. Because of Thanksgiving, the hospital is backed into the last week of november, so our ultrasound is scheduled for the 28th. I'm not sure whether to be excited or resigned. There is always the possibility of a female child, it just doesn't seem like a good idea to get my hopes up because who wants to be disappointed when it comes to a baby? That hardly seems fair to the poor kid. My brief shock at #2 son being a boy not a girl was brief (I was sure he was a girl), and mostly centered around not being able to buy any little dresses.

My mister said that he thought I should keep a journal to record all the funny things that the kids do during the day. I told him that's why I have a blog, but as he pointed out, my blog doesn't really include much about my kids these days, so here's the update:

My 5-year-old is the VIP (Very Important Person) in his kindergarten class this week. It's been very exciting for him. Yesterday I told him that even when it wasn't his VIP week, he'd still be a VIP to me. He liked that.

A few weeks ago we had parent teacher conferences, he's doing well. He struggles with following directions, but as the teacher pointed out, he's 5, so that's normal.

In class he had filled out his own report card which asked a bunch of questions, each of which was followed by a happy face, a straight face, and a frowny face. He circled smiley faces on all but the first question, "I like going to school". I asked him why he circled the frowny face and he said, "It's a lot of work. I don't like going to school, but I go anyway." What a good kid. He likes being at school apparently, he's just not so fond of having to leave home.

This morning (he's done this before too) while mister and I were trying to wake up, this sweet 5-year-old set the table with bowls and spoons and cups for all of us, then poured cereal and (not-quite-cold-enough) milk for himself and his younger brother.

In the nearly-3-year-old department, I've gotten tired of constantly running to the kitchen to stop him from getting things out of the fridge. He's still eating like there's no tomorrow. I've set "snack times" and am not letting him eat if it's not snack time. I'm still running to the fridge to stop him from helping himself every two minutes, but I'm not feeding him all day long anymore.

Yesterday I made a huge lunch for both boys and didn't think they'd eat it all, but they did. I've been reading the Vegan Lunchbox Blog. We're not vegan, or even vegetarian (meat, yum) but it's a fun blog to read, and it nearly always inspires me to make lunch a little more fun. Fun lunches get eaten better than boring ones do. We had a dish of yogurt, peanut butter sandwiches, craisins, and carrots cut into little disks (the 5-year-old called them carrot quarters) with ranch dressing to dip. They ate everything and wanted more. The food was all arranged in our favorite "snack plate lunch" fashion which comes from the days when my grandma would cut up apples (skins off) and cheese and crackers and arrange them on a plate when we were sick. I still love snack plates...