Time To Plan For Holiday Grocery Shopping

 Good morning!  Or Good "whenever you are reading this".  Down by two cats YAY!  Still have 7 left.  This week is kind of a odds and ends type week.  I'm trying to get things organized and accomplished.  I canned some dry pinto beans.  It's a nice convenience to just have to open a jar.  I also made some sweetened condensed milk for the holidays.    
I think I've undertaken a daunting project in that I'm attempting to restore a hand sewn quilt my grandmother made probably 75- 80 years ago.  I've washed it on the gentle cycle and am now waiting for it to line dry.  Having to do that inside as we have cats outside too and want to make sure nothing gets damaged further.  If anyone has some tips on how to go about this, please comment below.  I need all the help I can get.  The only thing I know is if I do nothing, the quilt will continue to disintegrate in my trunk.  See what I mean?

                                         

So that's the local chit chat on the homestead, but I have a much more exciting thing to talk about!  Holidays are coming!!!!  With that comes the best grocery staple sales hands down.  This would be the Super Bowl of the grocery shopping sale season.  Now don't get me wrong; there are good deals to be had through out the year, but this time of year you can get really good buys on things like flour, butter, turkey, ham, evaporated milk, nuts, chocolate, canned vegetables, cranberries, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, spices, extracts, and sugar to name a few.  Everything a growing pantry needs.  

Even Walmart and Aldi are announcing their holiday dinner plans!  Now they aren't really telling me anything I don't already know.  Every year grocery stores vie for our holiday dinner dollars.  Walmart and Aldi are just advertising what every store will be doing.  So don't just focus on Walmart and Aldi.  Scan those other ads for the deals too.  So, just in case you didn't read the article, it's Nov 1st -Dec 26th.  You will see some good staple item deals.  Stock Up!

Here's a tip.  You're deals are usually found on the first and last page of a store's ad.  These are called Loss leaders and they are that.  The store takes a loss on these things in order to draw you into the store and hopefully sell you other things maybe not as great a deal.  Your mission should you choose to accept it; is to shop these loss leaders and not get suckered into other things.  Now if you find a good unadvertised price on something in the store, we can talk, but know your prices going in.   

Now is the time to start laying a little extra aside.  If you can't lay a little extra aside, start cooking more from scratch and using less processed foods in order to have the extra dollars to stock up on these deals.  Go thru your pantry and make a wish list.  Go thru your grocery list and nix anything unnecessary; soda, junk food, processed foods.  Push comes to shove make the junk food!  Only if you make it; it's no longer junk food, but homemade goodness with no funny business.  Seriously, some of the junk food will also be on sale!  Buy it then!  

You're welcome!  😁

https://fox8.com/news/walmart-aldi-to-offer-thanksgiving-dinner-options-at-lower-prices/

I'm Not Supposed To Be A Crazy Cat Lady!

 Yall I'm losing my mind!  All the things we have going on and add 9 baby kittens in various ages and it's an insane asylum!  Remember the feral mom and  kittens?   Well HER mom was also pregnant and had a litter, we know not where.  This was about 4 weeks ago; right after I posted on the kittens we had then.  Anyway, we knew she had a litter of kittens, but not knowing where they were, we just started looking everywhere we could think of. The idea was to get the kittens and then use them to lure her into the house; much the same way as we did her daughter.  So with that thought in mind, DH went under the house to see if he could find them.  So the good news is DH did find a litter of kittens.  The bad news is they were too old to be hers.  We suspect they belonged to another one of her feral daughters.  We haven't seen that particular daughter in a long while.  In fact.  We had only seen her a few days before we found what we believe to be her litter.  We believe something happened to her, unfortunately.  For that reason we're so glad we found those kittens as they wouldn't have had a mother to feed them and would have died.  

So now we have 9, count them 9 kittens running thru this house and still have no idea where the, uh, grandmother mama cat's litter is.  I expect she'll bring them to us to feed in a couple of weeks.  We can't end this over abundance of cats unless we can get that grandmama cat fixed.  She's the one who keeps having kittens.  This would be her 5th in about 14 months.

As for the daughter we currently have in the house and slated to be fixed, she did take in these extra 4 babies and mother them...or a bit. It got to the point they got their teeth and started biting her.  So we had to step in and start hand feeding them some.  They're staring to eat dry food, but still want the milk we've been giving them.  Mini Me , the mother cat that is raising them, does still allow them to nurse a little, but not if they start fighting for a spot.  With 9 kittens that can be all the time.  We're just happy when she can and do our best when she can't.  

Without further adieu:  

If you're near North Georgia and are interested in a kitty, just comment and let me know.  The gold one is taken, as are the two black males and the black and brown long hair female.  

Update on Mom and reworking things

 Good morning all!  It is a good morning here.  Tonight's low is forecasted to be 43.  Fills my heart with joy.  That there is good fan in the window sleepin weather!  Now in January, when it's lows in the 20's; pay no attention when I complain about how cold it is.  Not going to think about that right now.  

Temperature isn't the only reason for my good morning.  Looks like my mom will be coming home from the hospital Tuesday.  She has a long road back, but she's doing so well.  

This particular hospital stay actually started almost 15 weeks ago.  15 weeks tomorrow.  Back in July, my mom fell in her driveway.  She had just returned from walking her dog.  When she pushed the button to open the garage, it startled her dog and he bolted, pulling her down.  Although an ambulance came, she refused to go to the hospital because she didn't think she was hurt.  She thought she was just jarred from the fall.  We won't mention what all of her children thought.  Ahem.....Moving right along!  

To her credit, she did finally go to an orthopedist about 4 weeks after the fall.  They took x-rays and said no fracture.  So she's been operating under the knowledge that nothing was broken.  However she wasn't getting better; only worse.   She was living in constant pain.  Finally she went to another orthopedic surgeon. They did a new set of x-rays and a scan to confirm, but there it was big as day, a hip fracture. Fast forward about a week due to having to make an appointment to see the surgeon for result and finally being told she could just go thru the ER and they would admit her to fix the hip.  So we took her a week ago this past Thursday.  They did surgery on her hip that Friday.  She did great for a day or two and then her knee swelled up and was causing crazy amounts of pain.  They drew fluid off her knee and sent it off to be tested; infection.  Yep, now we have that.  So she's started on antibiotics.  Now she's up and moving around.  She's working with physical therapy and walking down the hall some.  I'm so glad to see her out of pain.  She hasn't needed much for pain in the last couple of days.  She's primarily still in the hospital to finish the antibiotics and because she's on blood thinners to avoid clots.  

We did have a concerning (to put it mildly) moment during her stay.  It seems she has lesions on her pancreas.  They did an MRI to rule out Cancer.  When a doctor says "cancer" to you, it's easy to go to a very dark place.  Fortunately the MRI found no cancer.  We believe the lesions are damage caused by extended use of Tylenol.  We're hopeful, as she heals and isn't taking the pain meds, her pancreas will heal some.  So bear that in mind guys.  You shouldn't need to take any pain med for longer than 2 weeks.  If you're still in pain, see a doctor!!!  Your liver and pancreas will thank you.  

So, as for reworking things;  My siblings and I and banding together to help her during her recovery.  It's probably going to be a 6-8 week journey.  As she progresses, she won't need us as much, but for now, I'll be splitting time between My house and hers.  That means making meals ahead for when I'm gone, but also maybe purchasing things to have here and there to make things more convenient for both myself and my family when I'm away.  The garden is the least of my worries at this moment.  It's finished for the most part anyway.  I have a few cold weather things, but not much.  Clean up will have to wait til later.  Maybe it will give me something to do during the bleak winter months.  I plan to take my sewing with me for times when she doesn't need me.  That way I can keep up my Etsy shop during the holiday shopping season.  

It's what all of use should do in similar, and by that I mean "Crisis" situations.  There will always be things that rear their ugly head at the most inopportune times.  The way to plan for these things is to always recognize they will happen and so be willing to lay aside schedules, processes, and priorities to address them.  My mom is my priority. My family is also a priority.  That means I will do as much as I can to take care of my family and my mom.  I also need to be a priority.  If I'm not a priority to myself, then I won't be able to be there for my mom and family.  So while I will make things ahead primarily:  I will also buy healthy (operative word is healthy) things at the store that I don't have time to take care of at home.  I will also set things aside that don't have to be a priority.  

I'll do my best to post some frugal tidbit, but it may be a repost of something relevant to the season. Please be patient.  I'll be back at the writing desk sooner rather than later.  

If there is a topic you'd be interested in my addressing, please comment below and I'll address it, or post something from a previous post to address it.  Thanks guys!

I know I'm running late with a new post

 My mom is in the hospital, so I may be next week.  Thanks for understanding.

Look Behind You!

 Hello, Hello!  How's everyone doing?  We're good here.  Have some kittens needing homes due to a feral mama and her brood we're housing.  She's due to get fixed end of October, but she has 5 little babies needing a new place to live.  Garden clean up is in the works.  Putting the garden to bed is hard work, but very satisfying, especially if it's been a good year; and it has.  I'll be behind the sewing machine adding stock to my Esty store soon.  The holidays are on the horizon and I need to have a lot of doll clothes for gifts.  Gifts for children, and gifts for people that are children at heart.  Many of my customers are doll collectors.  Weather it's due to nostalgia from their childhood, or they just happen to have an antique doll that needs dressing; those customers prefer the vintage style of the clothes I create.  Child or child at heart, I got it covered.

I can understand the attraction.  I too have dolls from my childhood.  Being 56, those dolls are now bordering on antique, but definitely vintage.  I also have a few old, old dolls, around 80-100 years old, and they need clothes too.  I don't collect, these are just ones I use for models or am refinishing to find new homes.  Have to include a recent restoration in this post.  She's about 80 years old.  I'm guessing you can tell the before and after.  She's up for adoption to anyone interested.  She's $75.  

Vintage items are attractive, and in a practical sense, can be a really good buy.  They're really a great choice when it comes to small home appliances.  In some cases, large home appliances.  I know.  It sounds weird, but it's true.  At the risk of sounding cliché, things were just made better then.  My mom once told me people would know how long a couple had been married by the age of their appliances.  I guess the same can be said these days, but for an entirely different reason.  Appliances, then lasted way longer.  They were built to last longer.  

I was in an antique store a while back and saw a old Westinghouse stove similar to the one below.  1928!  I was told by the dealer that the stove was still working the day it was taken out of the original owners house a week prior.

I myself recently lost my Iron.  That iron, purchased at Walmart and from a allegedly reputable company, gave me fits from day 1.  Being a seamstress; especially one who has a shop needing stocking, I needed an iron that would be a work horse.  This one wasn't.  It gave out after only a few years.  I know I could have returned it right after I bought it, but I didn't have time.  I needed an iron. So when this iron went out I knew I wanted to look vintage.  I found a vintage GE steam and dry iron made in the 1970's.  I've had it now for 14 months and it's been wonderful!  It cost me $26.  I did pay for priority shipping because I was in the middle of a custom order and was on the clock, but even that only made my total, taxes and everything, about $45.  This iron is one purchase I know I don't regret.

I used my grandmothers pressure canner, manufactured in 1946, up until this year.  This year I noticed a small crack in the bottom.  This makes it unsafe to use as a pressure canner.  77 years old!  I still have it though.  Cant bring myself to throw it away.  

The vast majority of my cookware is cast iron.  I have a few new pieces, but prefer the old pre 1960 pieces.  In a side by side comparison, the older cast iron seasons easier, and is lighter than it's modern day counterpart.  Not to mention I love the history behind each pan/pot.  To get these sometimes means restoring them from a rusted clump, but this isn't too hard.  Many times a good scrub with vinegar and 0000 steel wool does the trick, but for really bad ones you can put them in your oven and set your oven to the self cleaning mode.  Let the cleaning mode run it's course and you'll remove a good as new pot that just needs re-seasoning.  While most of my cast iron is around the 1920-1940 era, I do have a couple that are late 1800's.  Those were my great great grandmothers.  I cherish those.  The piece seen below was a mess of rust.  I restored that one using electrolysis.  An engineering friend helped me with that one.  Basically it was submerged in salted water and a current was run through the water.  The rust followed the current away from the pot.  Not sure of all the scientific particulars, but that's the jest.  I then washed and seasoned the pot.  This pot is actually a humidifier.  

I'll find vintage cooking utensils; knives, spatula, ladle's at thrift stores that hold up better than current "high quality" brands.  My washing machine is an older gear driven machine.  Makes it easier to repair if needed, and runs great. 

The benefit of looking to vintage brands is the opportunity to get a product that works better at the same, if not lower, cost.  I'll tell you there isn't one vintage item I own that I regret purchasing.  Plus I love the idea of giving something old a new life.  

Do you have any favorite trinkets?  I'd love to hear about them.  

The power of DIY cooking.

 Good afternoon everyone!  

Today's topic is one near and dear to my heart.  It's something I, and almost everyone else is contending with in our world; How to make do with higher food prices.  I've waxed philosophically about watching for sales, gardening, canning, bartering, shopping mark downs, and cooking from scratch.  All of these are amazing skills you can use to help you not only make do, but come out on top when prices hit the roof.  I wanted to dive in a little more to the scratch cooking, if I may.  What I'd like to show is how, not only are there savings in cooking from scratch, but there's a greater degree of control in what is put in our families bodies.  It's healthier!  

So with that thought in mind, I looked up a few items on the Walmart webpage.  These are Walmart brand items.  I want to price compare the Great Value brand, which is usually the least expensive, with what I spend making that same item at home.  The savings is more than just a few pennies.  The cost of ingredients I'd use to make this at home comes from Walmart's site as well.

Shall we begin:  Great Value Biscuits: Ingredient list

Enriched Bleached Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Palm Oil, Buttermilk, Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate), Contains Less Than 2% of the Following: Sugar, Whey, Salt, Sodium Caseinate, DATEM, Mono and Diglycerides, Enzyme

Could be worse.  In all the wordiness, I do see Flour, Water, Buttermilk, Baking soda/Powder, Salt, and Whey.  But I also see Palm Oil, DATEM, Mono and Diglycerides.  So still not as good as what you can make at home in my opinion.  Plus, this package contains 20 biscuits for the lovely price of $4.52.  That's .23 per bisuit

Compare To My Frozen Biscuits:  6 cups of Unbleached Flour (you can still use white; it will be a little cheaper.  You can also do half white and half wheat): 3 tsp Salt,  3 TBS Baking powder, 1 cup of Butter, 2 cups Milk. 

My recipe makes 27 good size biscuits.   The Cost of those 27 biscuits? $3.10.  That's .12 per biscuit.  That's almost half the price of the store bought.  To have 27 Great Value biscuits would cost you $6.10.  

That's a $1.42 savings!  My calculations are based on Walmart prices for standard sizes.  Should you choose to use Buttermilk, you'd add a little bit more, due to price difference in buttermilk and the addition of a pinch of baking soda; but not much difference.  These are incredibly easy to make.  My recipe is on my recipes page.  

In fact all of these recipes are included on my recipes page.  Have a look!

Great Value Chocolate syrup.  Cost is $4.18 if you buy the value size.  Which is the better price between the 24 and 48 ounce sizes. 

 First red flag is the High Fructose corn syrup, then more corn syrup?  Xanthan Gum? What the heck is Vanillin?  Chocolate syrup was one of the first things I began making at home due to my son's allergy to what we then thought was corn, but later found out it was any corn product grown in the standard industrialized farming method.  Organic Non GMO corn products caused no reaction.  

Compare to my homemade chocolate syrup.  Ingredients:  1 cup cocoa powder, 1 1/2 cups sugar, dash salt, 1 tsp REAL vanilla, and 1 cup hot water.  Makes 24 oz.  Cost to make: $1.69 for 24 ounces or $3.38 for 48 ounces.  While the savings isn't astronomical at only .80 ( not bad though) the homemade version is a much healthier alternative.  No ingredients where you need to look up the definition.  Plus I get the added benefit of knowing there isn't a trace of anchovies( gag) in my chocolate syrup.  Ways to reduce even this cost is to make your own vanilla.  Incredibly easy to do.  

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN VANILLA:  Buy 10 vanilla beans and 1.75 liter of Vodka or Rum.  I have mine in Rum.  Run a knife down the length of the bean, putting a slit in one side.  Submerge the beans in the vodka/rum.  Just stick them down in the bottle.  Put in a cool dark place and shake once a week.  Vanilla can be used in 6 weeks, but it's best if you can let it steep about 6 months.  Once you start using your homemade vanilla, you can just top off the bottle with additional vodka/rum.  I usually will pour off 2 ounces into a separate container, and then add 2 ounces of vodka or rum to my big bottle of homemade vanilla, and just let it keep on making vanilla.  No need to buy beans again for a long while.  Real vanilla at Walmart; their brand, is $5.98 for 2 ounces.  My homemade vanilla is .83 for 2 ounces.  That's a significant savings.  

Okay, last example lest I bore you to tears:  Great Value brand Hamburger helper.  I'll admit this one is hard to compare.  Mainly because the only ingredient our recipes share is the pasta.  I do have to buy pasta and that's where similarities end.  One box of their hamburger helper, which somehow doesn't have tomato in it, is $1.28 for one 5.5 ounce box.  I'd need 2 boxes to feed this crew.  That would cost me $2.56.  Plus look at the chemicals!  Yikes.  

My hamburger helper is 8 ounces pasta, 1 lb ground beef, one medium onion, 1 28 ounce can tomatoes, 1 tsp salt, pepper, and whatever spices strike my fancy.  Minus the ground beef, my hamburger helper comes in at $2.23.   While not a huge savings, it's a much healthier meal.  It also takes the same amount of effort to prepare.  I simply brown the ground beef with a chopped onion.  Add the pasta, salt, pepper, and tomatoes.  I fill the tomato can about half way with water and swish it around then add that to the pan.  I stir it all together.  Put the lid on and let it simmer til the pasta is soft.  That's it.  No mystery.  Also, since I grow my tomatoes, this is cheaper than the $2.23 I've calculated based on the price of a can of tomatoes.  Mine are pennies.  Watching for sales can make it even cheaper. 

The point of this post is to give an idea of how to save even more at the store by making your own.  I have way more recipes on my page and try to add new ones when I find them.  The savings for just these three items, not counting the vanilla, is $2.55.  If you do an equal comparison of the biscuit prices you're looking at a savings of $5.65.  What else can you buy that you couldn't before with a few more dollars in your pocket?  Think of the things you buy prepackaged at the store.  How much do you think you could save by making it yourself?  I'd hazard to guess it could be significant.  It's a huge way to save without ever worrying about a garden or livestock.  It's a huge savings without the added benefit of a sale.  It also has the benefit of feeding your family well.  

Check out my recipe page and see the things I make here.  Maybe some of them will be useful to you.  What are some things you make from scratch?  

 

STAIN REMOVER RECIPE!

   This is extremely good for baby clothes, but really, any clothes with food or grease stains.  I've used this recipe for set in stained clothes for years( ahem decades).  Set in meaning they were accidently dried, and therefore permanent.  

1 cup of liquid Cascade dishwashing soap- just your normal cascade liquid; doesn't need to be fancy.  1 cup of Clorox color safe bleach.  Mix these in a  gallon bucket with Very Hot but not boiling water.  Fill the bucket about 2/3 full of hot water.  Then add the clothes that need stains removed.  I like to set aside clothes until I've gathered enough to make this worth while.  Once added just let them sit over night or at least 12 hours.  Then dump the whole thing, clothes and all, in your washer and wash as usual.  You won't need to add more soap though.  Double check each item as you place them in the dryer to make sure they're clean.  Some really tough stains may need a second go. 

This won't remove red mud stains, rust, bleach stains, or ink(especially black marker).  

Tip for removing stains in general: treat them before they're dried.  Once dried these stains can be set in and hard to remove

Ink stains can be removed by spraying with hair spray before they have been dried in the dryer

Blood stains can be removed by soaking in peroxide; again before they have been dried

Grease stains can be removed with dish soap ground into the stain before washing.