In the home stretch!

WHEW!  It has been a month!  I have three weeks under my belt and one week more until I get my official grocery money.  However, I was blessed enough in selling some things on my Etsy shop, and so I get to pick up a few items this week.  These are items which are on my ever growing grocery list for next week.  To be able to get these items at these prices is awesome!

Boneless pork loin-  $1.48 lb at a local store.  This store, since it is an independent store, will grind as well as slice meat.  For that reason I watch for pork loin to go on sale here first.  Plus when it does go on sale here; it's usually cheaper.  I get the center third sliced into chops about 3/4 inch thick and then the two end thirds ground.  I use the ground pork loin to make our breakfast sausage .  Plus, we have discovered that hamburgers made with ground pork are pretty awesome.  Way better than turkey and very low in fat and calories, yet high in protein.  In fact, the cheapest turkey I can buy here is $1.89 lb and it's only 85% lean.  This is way leaner and I can get it on sale for anywhere from $1.48- $1.69 lb.  I have used it in all sorts of recipes where ground beef is called for and have been extremely pleased with the results.  Hamburgers were my last experiment and the ground pork came thru with flying colors.  My freezer is getting bare, so I'm refilling it ahead of time because the sale will be gone after Tuesday.  I'm purchasing about 21 lbs.

Folgers coffee-  I try to keep 6 large containers of coffee on hand at all times.  When I open the 6th one, I add a coffee to my grocery list.  I haven't been able to do that for a couple of months.  I'm down to three.  The same local independent store has the 31 oz can of Folgers for $4.97.  Awesome price.  I'll get three and have that back to comfort level.

Cheese!-  Kroger has the 2 lb packages of their brand of cheese on sale for $4.99.  Plus I have a Kroger coupon for $1.50 off a $7 or more dairy purchase.  This will make the cheese around $2.35 lb, which is cheaper than Costco.  The sale will end on Tuesday.  So I will get 5 packages of different varieties now.

Strawberries-  It's strawberry season!  Woohoo!  While I grow strawberries, we didn't get many last year.  I'm hoping for a better outcome this year, but until then, Aldi has Strawberries for .99 lb!  I had them on my list to buy frozen at Costco, but this price is way cheaper and it gives us a few fresh ones to eat as well.  I'll buy 10 lbs.  I'll freeze 7 or 8 lbs, and keep 2 or 3 lbs in the fridge for fresh eating.

Fresh Spinach-  Will pick up at Aldi along with a few Bananas because we're out and need it to finish out the week.

So everything above was budgeted to fit the $82 I got from sales on Etsy (thank you Lord!).  I do have one thing I'm getting that isn't budgeted.  A local Amish store in my area has boneless skinless chicken breast for $1.29 lb for a 40 lb box.  That is a crazy good price.  Chicken breast is on my list for next week.  I made an executive decision to take money out of savings long enough to purchase a box on Monday.  This will be deducted from my grocery money allotment next week, and the money put back into savings.  I need chicken breast and, at that price, It was worth the call.

So there you have it.  I still have another week before official groceries, but things will be easing up this week.  Still have baking to do and things to figure out, but it should be all good.

  I'll be glad.  I have not eaten as well as I should.  I was very limited in what I had to choose from.  One thing I noticed is I ended up eating more carbs than normal.  That made me more likely to munch during the day.  I miss my lean meat and roasted veggies for lunch.  Ready to get back to it.

Not ta too shabby

The saga of black belt frugality continues....Once again this week I entered into the fray(kitchen) and made dog treats (they go thru these cause they are big girls), freezer biscuits,and bread.  This time I included hamburger buns.  In addition I cooked up that turkey.  You know the 24 pounder?  Not to shabby results I dare say.  We had it for dinner on Monday night.  It has made lunches for hubby and I all week.  I froze enough meat for 7-9 meals worth with leftovers.  I got a pint of turkey fat I will use in making yet more dog treats (probably tomorrow), and 11 pints of broth.  Not to mention, once the broth was made, I took all of the scraps out and gave them to the chickens.  Pretty good return on my investment of .57 a lb.  And, yes, chickens can eat turkey.  I looked it up.  Don't worry, I won't feed them chicken.  Chickens, FYI are omnivores, and a member of the buzzard family.  They eat meat.

All these little extra items are in addition to the meals and such I made from scratch; sausage, chili, pizza, chocolate chip cookies.  So the kitchen has been humming.

Sure I could have dipped into our savings and pulled out enough money for groceries, and just pay it back over time.  But there are a lot of advantages to doing this to myself.  "Doing this" as in no grocery money.  Just leave the savings alone.

1)  It forces me to use up what I have in my freezer.  My go to veggie, I confess, is roasted frozen veggies or roasted carrots.  If there are any frozen veggies in the freezer, I will go to them more often than not.  Last summer I put up many bags of yellow squash, and yet many times I over look it in favor of the roasted veggies.  Funny thing is, since I've been doing this I've found I really like the squash and it's creating a new habit in me to use it.  The same can be said for some pear sauce I canned (used since we're out of applesauce).  It's really quite good, especially with a little cinnamon added, but I didn't use it because I thought my son wouldn't eat it.  Well surprise, surprise he will, and does!

2) It stretches my creative juices when it comes to cooking.  Weather it's a new creative use for left overs or meal planning.  It definitely makes me think outside the box.  In fact we're not keeping leftovers.  They're getting finished off pretty quick.  I will usually have them for lunch the next day.

3)  It does give me an excuse to bake.  This is a double edged sword as baking leads to good stuff to eat and calories...yea, great, but I'm looking forward to having my chicken breast and roasted veggies.  That would be the one disadvantage in that I'm eating more carbs than I normally would.  Taste great, but more than likely will hang around a bit....on my hips.

4)  It eats down my freezer and fridge which will make putting groceries away (when I buy them) much easier.  I plan to defrost my freezer right before grocery day.

5)  It leaves my savings alone.  I would rather work a little more now and have my savings available for when I really need it.  When the ends can't meet because of a bill or repair that has to be done and I can't do it myself.

It's a challenge at this point.  2 weeks left.  Just two.  I'm halfway through.  Ohhh yay!

So I know it's been 2 weeks since last I posted.  I apologize.  I have been sewing (of course), baking (of course), and working on this!  Ta Daaa!  My chickens have moved up in the world.

Nothing that would merit a picture in better homes and gardens, but it does deserve an honorable mention in the red neck quarterly.  I will say that 95% of this was made from items I either already had on hand, or had been given.  I paid for zip ties ( bought enough they probably thought I was up to no good), some screws, Bird netting (to protect from chicken hawks), 2 4x4x8 posts, and hinges.  The door is a wooden pallet Dh and I took off for my mom.  I covered it in hard chicken wire that I already had on hand.  I need to add a latch (Hence the pole holding the door shut), and trim off some of the zip ties I forgot about, but you get the general idea.  This is the retirement home.  Here they will make compost (using the deep bedding method)and a few eggs, but they really aren't laying so much right now.  The rooster is old and cantankerous and headed for the stew pot come May.  Sorry if that offends, but...

 This is what used to be their run

A little 4 x 8 PVC number that will now go to the baby chicks so I can move them around my garden.  Then, when the baby chicks are old enough they will take over the laying and the roosters....well, they will grace our dinner table.  Hey but until then they will get lots of green grass, bugs, and one of them will stay to father new babies.  That's the plan anyway.

So there you have it, my goings on.  Not much in the way of weight loss, but my life none the less.  What have you been up to?

Recipes for what I made today. In case you're interested

Whole milk Yogurt

3.25 cups of whole milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 carton Fage 2% plain Greek yogurt (5.3 oz) for starter- put this out on the counter to warm a bit before you start.  I find if I put it out when I start the milk to heating, it's at a good temp for mixing when the time comes.

Turn on oven light.  In a 2 quart saucepan on medium, heat milk to 180 degrees.  Keep milk at 180 for 30 minutes.  You may have to adjust your heat to keep it at 180.  I have to turn my heat down to just above low.  Meanwhile, take quart mason jar or enough glass containers to hold 1 quarts of yogurt.  Place in a pot of water and bring to a boil.  Boil 15 minutes to sterilize jars.  Turn off heat, remove jars from pot and turn upside down in a clean towel to drain.  If you're using lids and rings, I like to put these temporarily in the now just hot water.  Then remove them and place on the towel.

Once 30 minutes have passed, turn off the heat and allow to cool in the pan til the temp reaches 110 degrees.  Once at 110 degrees, mix in the entire container of yogurt.  Mix well.  Wait a few minutes and then mix again to make sure it's well incorporated.  Pour into your glass containers and add lids. Place in the oven and leave he oven light on.  Let stand in the oven for 4 hours.  Check to see if it has started to thicken.   If it hasn't, leave a few hours longer.  Once you check it and the yogurt has started to thicken, remove from oven and place in fridge.   You can go further and place a pint of this yogurt in a strainer lined with cheese cloth.  Let it strain a few hours for a Greek style yogurt, or you can let it strain over night and make yogurt cheese.  This is much like cream cheese.  After straining to cheese, I'll add a little salt, pepper, basil or other fragrant herb of choice to make a very flavorful cheese you can spread on crackers, celery or wherever you would use a cream cheese spread.

Bulk taco seasoning mix

3/4 cup dried onion
1/2 cup chili powder
1/4 cup salt
3 T garlic powder
3 T corn starch
3 T ground cumin
1 T - 3 T cayenne pepper-  I use 1T

Easy peasy, put all ingredients into a quart sz jar and shake to mix well.  Use 1/4 cup mix and 1/4 cup water to a lb of ground meat browned.  Voila!  Also make a great seasoning for a pot of chili.


Chocolate Syrup

1 cup cocoa powder
1.5 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup hot water
1 tsp vanilla

In a 2 quart saucepan mix the sugar, cocoa, and salt.  Pour in the hot water and mix well.  Bring to a boil on medium heat.  Once boiling, turn off burner, but let pan remain on the burner to cool.  When cool, add the vanilla.  Use anywhere you would Hersheys syrup.  Store in fridge.


Dog Treats

2.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup dry milk
1 tsp sugar
1/3 tsp garlic
1 egg
1/2 cup peanutbutter
6 T oil- or I use chicken or bacon fat.  They love this!
1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350.  In a medium size bowl mix all the dry ingredients.  Add the egg, oil, water and peanutbutter.  Mix as well as you can with a spoon.  Mix will be dry.  Add a little water if too dry.  In need to be like a really dense cookie dough.  Roll out and either cut into strips or use a cookie or biscuit cutter to make the treats.  I make mine big because I have big dogs.  Smaller dogs I would make them small like the milk bone treats.  Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.  Turn off oven and let them remain in the oven til the oven and the treats cool.  These should be hard.   

Taking stock and what I have to have

Grocery list Have to's

8 gallons Milk- this is for drinking, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.
Spinach/Lettuce- mines not big enough so this will have to do til then.
Chicken Feed
Dog Food
Cat food
Cat litter
Laundry Soap
Worcestershire Sauce
2 jars lemon juice
Tea Bags
Onions
Potatoes
Dawn dish washing liquid( on sale 1.79 this week.  Only need 1)

The items crossed through have already been purchased this week.  I'm starting out with way less than I thought.  Yikes.  For now $70 dollars after the two marked through items, and that's taking a little from savings.  That covers the have to list above (plus I am getting the 5 Dawns.  That's a good price.  Cheaper than even Aldi brand), so I'm thankful.  Any Etsy sales I make this week or over the next month will go toward other items I either forgot about, ran out of, or some of the want to's below.  It'll be a tight month, but with what I have on hand and the time to make the things I need, it should be doable.  Looking forward to next month getting the full grocery allotment so I can begin rebuilding the pantry some.

Grocery want to's

Other fresh fruit or veggies
Frozen fruits or veggies
Butter (on sale this week for 1.99 limit 5)- Don't have to have it.  I already have butter, but this is a good stock up price
Dawn Dish washing liquid.  There's a limit of 5 on the sale price above.  This is a good stock up price.
Pastured pork side meat- I cure this at home with salt and celery seed (the celery seed provides the good nitrates for preservation.  It's $4 lb. That's a bit high for us right now, but I get the bacon and the bacon fat for cooking.  So still on the list.

Plan to make today- gottem made.

Loaf bread
Granola
Cookies of some sort.

Plan to make Saturday

Pizza crust
Dog treats
Yogurt


Items used from stock (Items I always make sure I have on hand in large supply)

Flour-  5 lb bag only because I'm using up what I have to switch to only fresh ground organic non-GMO wheat from berries I grind.
Wheat Berries
Sugar- again, once this is gone, my plan is to transition to mostly maple syrup, raw honey, and maybe Stevia, but maybe not Stevia.  Don't know yet.  May keep a little sugar around for coffee, and granola.
Maple syrup
Spices-
Oats
Coffee
Canned veggies (from garden and some from store)
Home frozen veggies- squash, peppers
Home canned pear sauce
Home frozen black berries
Frozen blueberries
Chocolate chips
Cocoa powder
Dried beans
Meat in the freezer- the turkey, some ground pork, pork chops, 4 lbs ground turkey, a whole chicken, and some already cooked and de-boned chicken, a roast, and 1 pkg of Italian sausage.
Fresh carrots-bought a huge amount last month on a good deal so have plenty left over.

Before you guys say "well she doesn't need much", remember, I keep a pantry for this occasion.  I normally restock it as it runs down past a certain limit.  For example, coffee.  I keep 6 cans on hand at any given time.  When the 6th can is opened, I add coffee to my list to get one to replace the one I just opened.  Kwim?  I am not doing that this month, and am down to 4.  Next month is where things will really get interesting because I will need to replenish some of what I use this month plus get the normal stuff.  Meat will more than likely be gone from the freezer then, or at least mostly, as will any frozen veggies or fruits.  Pantries are not just for apocalyptic scenarios.  They're for the unexpected bill, illness, lay off, etc.  It's like another emergency fund in that your actual emergency cash doesn't have to be used for food.  Instead this is your emergency stash.  You get these items when on sale for a good price, and buy extra for a rainy day.  This past month of home repairs has hit hard, and you add to that the $ 445 power bill and it's a bit of a pickle.  Fortunately, we've managed to maintain the minimum $1000 emergency fund as well as our other funds.  So no one think we're destitute.  We're not.  This is a choice we're making in order to maintain our funds for a time when they're really needed.  Over the next month, I'll pass on some recipes I'm making, the items I'm creating at home rather than buying, and other ways through.  This is more of a frugal maven thing,  but when it all comes down to it, money is a part of everyday living so they kind of intersect.

Stay tuned.

Pulling out my Black Belt frugality.

This is a throwback to my old Frugalmaven days.  Long ago I did a series on Black Belt frugality.  The frugal tips you use when ends aren't meeting and you've run out of things to try.

http://frugalmavensdailyrave.blogspot.com/2011/10/black-belt-grocery-savings-part-1.html

http://frugalmavensdailyrave.blogspot.com/2011/10/black-belt-grocery-savings-part-2.html

http://frugalmavensdailyrave.blogspot.com/2011/10/blackbelt-grocery-savings-part-3.html

http://frugalmavensdailyrave.blogspot.com/2011/10/blackbelt-grocery-savings-part-4.html

So now it's time for me to pull out my black belt again.  About 6 weeks ago we had a mouse(still did up until 2 days ago).  To date said mosey has cost us $455 dollars in plumbing repair, and a lot of time spent on floor repair.  Yes, he is the reason for my foray into home repair of floors.  Today's latest $185 came from the Heating and air guy informing me of yet another leak, this time under the kitchen.  That little bit of info came while he was repairing our Heating/cooling unit.  I should say he was doing the best he could, because he told me we are going to need to be saving for a new system.  Don't know how much that's gonna be and even don't know how much today's visit will be because he isn't done.  He has to come back and finish repairing the unit and so I'll know our bill then.  Yay!  I get to contemplate it over the weekend!  I called them after noticing air moving under the floor while I was repairing the floor, and after I saw our power bill for this month.  Want to hazard a guess?       ....$445.86.  Add to all of this the fact that our back deck is now unsafe to be on and needs to be replaced and I need some major frugal moves.  WHEW!

So because our power bill is soooo high, I have $200 to spend for groceries for the month of Feb.  That will need to include Chicken Feed, Dog Food, Cat Food, Toiletries, etc.

So what am I gonna do?  Fortunately we are in the beginning of the growing season, albeit early.  I do, however have lettuce, spinach, and radishes growing as well as Beets, carrots, and celery.  I'll add to it as I go.  That will help some.
Baking is going to be a big part of that.  Quick breads, all yeast breads (Bagel, buns, sandwich bread), cookies, cakes, etc will be made by me.  Dog treats as well. Part of this is money savings, but also the chickens aren't laying a lot right now so we have to use our farm fresh eggs wisely. My baking will use whole wheat fresh ground flour.  In some cases I'll  be able to substitute some fruit or veggie puree in cakes and quick breads.  We have a chocolate cake we eat regularly that's made with a can of pumpkin.  It's good I swear!  You don't taste the pumpkin.  I top it with homemade chocolate syrup.  Fortunately my pantry will come in handy right now.  I already make our granola.  I don't buy cold cereal as a general rule.  We've stopped buying chips so that's great.  Fresh or frozen fruits or veggies will be my primary concern.  Plus organic brown rice, potatoes, onions.  I pulled up some over wintering onions from last years garden.  They didn't grow past leak stage, but have been very handy in recipes this week.  I'll still need more onions from the store.  I'll be going back to making our yogurt and cottage cheese.  I'd gotten lazy about it in recent months, but it's back!  Back before Thanksgiving I bought a 25 lb turkey.  Time to take that bad boy out of the freezer, cook it, and divide it up in bags and re-freeze.  It can take the place of chicken in most recipes, and I got it for .57 lb!  I have canned and frozen yellow squash, frozen zucchini, canned and frozen corn, canned carrots, beans, lima beans, all from last years garden.  This is definitely a way to get that stock used up!  Oh!  Speaking of stock, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the turkey bones will be put into a pot with onions, carrots, celery, salt, pepper, and a little vinegar and slow cooked overnight to make broth.  YUM!  Getting the most from everything I use! This will be great for soups and casseroles; which are great for stretching out what I have.  Long story short I will be choosing my battles very wisely.

 As for the lightly laying chickens, we will be ordering 10 more birds.  That's a necessity that can't be avoided, but it's only $25.  In the meantime, something that will cut down on the amount of feed we need to give them is kitchen scraps.  I've done this a little here and there, but lately have been dedicating all scraps to the chickens.  They love it!  They also love all the weeds I've been pulling up and throwing to them.  We're changing some ways we raise them and this should help with feed costs.  If you want to see which way we're heading, check out Justin Rhodes Vlogs on Youtube.  I've been binge watching!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOSGEokQQcdAVFuL_Aq8dlg

Hey at least not binging on food!

And now for something entirely different

A blog that focuses on one thing can get a bit dry.  I've been purposefully absent these past three weeks for a reason.  I wanted to finish what I started and be able to post about it here!  The pics will come later.  I'm not quite done.  Still a work in progress, but I haven't posted in so long, I wanted to at least tell the story.

As you guys know one of my sons (we'll call him Smokey) has flown the nest and I've been revamping both his old room and my other sons (let's call him Einstein) room.  Once I had Smokey's room re-painted and fixed, Einstein moved in, at that point, temporarily.  Einsteins old room is the room that had the water damage to the floor that needed to be repaired.  Still, I set to work repainting and fixing up that room, while waiting on the handyman to come fix the floor.

Normally, I'm a patient woman, sorta.  I can wait a certain length of time.  Mainly until it gets to the point where I can go no further until what I'm waiting on, happens.   That was the case here.  I waited on this handyman for weeks as I repainted and repaired what I could in Einsteins old room.  Then I was stuck.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not mad at the Handyman.  Far from it.  He works by himself and is waaaay behind.  It was looking like another two weeks from now before He would be able to even work me in.  There comes a point where I ask myself "What do you have to lose".  Worse case scenario I would need a handyman to fix the floor.  I already needed a handyman to fix the floor; so it was a zero sum game in my opinion.  First I looked to see if I could remove the swiftlock flooring without damaging it.  I could, and did.  Then I assessed the damage.  I knew I needed to remove the sub-flooring back to the first undamaged stud.  Could I?  I could and I did.  Then I found scrap 2 X 4 and screwed them into the existing frame to prepare a new area for the new sub-floor patch.  My dad had wood in his workshop, so while visiting my mom, I checked to see if there was any plywood I could use.  There was and I did.  Yesterday, I added the sub-floor patch with success!  Only one minor incident in that I really whacked my finger with the hammer and it hurt...a lot...really...a lot.  The finger is grey under the nail and still hurts.  The only drawback was I couldn't re-use the swiftlock because it was more water damaged than I thought.  It was just warped enough where it wouldn't snap back together.  I did get enough of it back in place to still move my sewing room in.  We will keep our eyes peeled for a carpet remnant we can use for that room.  I installed carpet in the closet so am willing to try a room next.  Had I been able to re-use the swiftlock, This repair would have cost me nothing, but as it stands, we will have to buy carpet.  But I can put that aside for now and address more important things around the house. Best thing is, I no longer need the handyman.  Not for that anyway.  I'm sure I'll still use him in the future.

So for now Smokey's old room is now Einsteins room.  He decided he liked staying there, and Einsteins old room is now my sewing room.  It isn't finished yet.  I still have some things I need to get and put up, but it's much better than the corner of the house I had before.  Now I can get back to restocking my Etsy shop.  I began work on 5 new outfits in my sewing room last night.  We'll see what I can do.  Who knows, I may be able to turn this into a real business!

As for my eating and such, I have to say I haven' eaten very well through all this.  I can say I've held my weight.  I'm happy with that.  I feel good and am happy with my current size.  I just don't want to gain.  I may hold my weight a while.  It's slow going when you get here.  Now that everything is settled though, I'm hopeful I can focus again on my eating and such.  But, I can't say I haven't been active!

"SNORT"

Seriously, that was the sound I made when I got on the scale this morning.  I could not believe what I saw.  NO GAIN!  No loss either, but no gain.  I was incredulous.  Mainly because since Thursday I've had access to many more dozen of my mom's cookies.  Like me, she was having a hard time staying out of them.  Actually a harder time because she's by herself.  I can at least spread the love.  My mom's cookies are one of the things I can't have in the house.  So DH is taking the rest (Which are in the freezer) to work with him tomorrow.  So all of you co-workers of my hubby be forewarned.

I think what helped me this week up until the cookies, was the fact that I was on track every day up until Thursday.  What's been a help and a hindrance this week is the fact that I was re-painting/ repairing my youngest sons former room, moving my other son into it, and beginning the process of repainting his room.  I need to get that done before the handyman comes to repair the floor in his room.  Hence the reason he had to move rooms.  Once the room is finished, I'll move him back to his old room and my other sons former room will become my new sewing room.  I do all this while everyone is at work.  So anyway, this activity has helped in that I'm moving all day, but hurt in the fact that I'm grabbing stuff for meals instead of stopping to sit down to eat.  Note to self, stop to eat please.

I can tell you this.  While I am extremely grateful that I didn't gain, I have to say I'm kinda bored with dancing around in the 160's.  It's time to make that middle number drop to a 5 at least.  It's gonna take me a while.  I was messing around on the spark people page adjusting my calories and such.  It didn't matter weather I put I wanted to lose 1 lb a week or 2.  The calories stayed the same 1200-1550.  Apparently  you can't go below that.  That means I need to either up a workout, or accept a s-l-o-w weight loss.  I'll opt for the slower loss.  I don't want to do anything to jeopardize my journey.  If I switch to longer or higher intensity workouts (which I hate), I'll stop doing them and regress.  Don't get me wrong, I'll still be doing a treadmill, step tape, and strength training, but it will be 45 minutes, and will still be mixed with other things like yard work, house cleaning, bike riding, etc.  In other words; status quo.  I'll increase what I need to in order to make it challenging, but that's about it.  I don't care if it takes me another 2  years to lose these last 20 lbs.  At least it will stay off.  The less disruption this journey makes in my life, the easier it will be for me to continue it long term.

So there it is.  No great epiphanies, but ya know..something.  Hope everyone's having a great day!