Our Month of Nothing Wrap-Up!

Wow, such an eye-opening month. So much so that we are making permanent several of the new things that we tried. And making more regular other experiments we tried as well. No we were not perfect; in fact, I was astounded by just how bad we were before. What? I know you think I’m all that and more, this hot, intensely farm-girl witty, dream chasing & catching chick that I am. But I’ve got some major issues to work on and I’m constantly finding new issues. That and I want to tackle my issues so my kids don’t have to grow up with the same ones that I fight.

So things we did well...

• 
  We cut our grocery bill almost 50% (not quite but almost) I think we saved over $575 on food and eating out over our regular month.
• 
  We cut our auto fuel bill by more than 50%. Many thanks to Prince Erik who only drove to work 5 days during September and they were all super good excuses like Dr. Appointments or off work-site meetings. The other days he cycled motorbike or rode the company bus.
• 
  I won’t know the difference in our monthly utilities until next month but I can only assume our water bill will be down.
• 
  Yes we decluttered a bit more, even took another load to the dump.
• 
  We made bread from scratch once or twice a week.
• 
  Cut our milk consumption from 9 gallons a week to 4.
• 
  And the kids took healthy homemade lunches to school every day.

Every one of those awesome changes I’m going to try my darndest to keep in place.

And through the whole month I had another FawnDear First. It’s not something I’m proud of. In fact I’m down right ashamed. It’s something I’ve known I’ve needed to do for more than a decade but haven’t quite figured out just how. I’ve given it the good old try several times over and nothing has worked. So what was that first??? For the first time that I can remember we spent less than we made. There I’ve said it. And it really stinks. Usually we spend and then rely on Tax Returns and work bonus’s to get us even or out of the money hole we constantly dig for ourselves and so far we’ve lucked out. But with a kid going to college in less than two years it won’t be as easy to walk that tightrope. I told you how budgets and I have a bad relationship. But I felt so good and felt some real power in the process of pondering true needs, I think this approach might be the one to take.

Things I still want to work on…

• 
  I’m still going to try and live by needs only. I quit our month of needs six hours early and took the kids out to a nice but inexpensive sit down restaurant and then asked them how badly they wanted to go to Disneyland? Then we talked about what it would take to get there. So sorry McDonalds but you didn’t fit into the equation. You won’t be seeing us anytime soon. The holidays will be much more frugal and thrifty as well. Christmas gifts will be more thought out and we’re skipping all the little knick-knacks that usually break one or two days after Christmas. The kids are on board and I’m determined to make this change permanent.
• 
  I still take too many little trips to the grocery store during the week. I think I averaged at least four times a week because I would run out of something. So I need to work on a more detailed menu and list.
• 
  I was so inspired by Owlhaven and all the canning she did this month and how her grocery bill budget was only $50 a week and she has 10 kids. Well she has inspired me to really give the large garden a good old honest try. I grew up with a huge garden so I know what I’m getting into. So we’ve started winter prepping our huge backyard so that come spring we can make our garden three times as big. I figure with the economy as wacked out as it is it really doesn’t hurt to acquire some new self-sufficient lifestyle habits.

I hope all you that played along had a great experience as well, and if things didn’t go as planned at least you’re more educated, and can have a better game plan on what worked and didn’t work for the next time you try.

Nothing but a WOW Week 1

Our first week of Nothing but Needs is over and how did we do? I think I can honestly say that we spent money on needs only.

Before we started, our average WEEKLY grocery bill (including eating out) was…

Beware it’s very, very scary. Not a pleasant amount. Enough to shock the socks off anyone…

But keep in mind we are a family of eight with three teenage sons, and sadly no garden of which to brag about this year. – NEXT YEAR it will be awesome.

Sorry for beating the bush leafless but back to the total.

$347.00 per week. Scary right? I’ve had weeks where it’s over $400.

So this week – our total was

Drum roll please:

$110.45

And of this $110 at least $28 was those canning supplies and another $16 was dog food for Itchy. Yes Itchy’s food comes out of our grocery budget. I figure that if the world ends and we eat through our food storage then we can always eat Itchy’s food – before we start consuming the bugs. Anyway it’s on our list.

So if you take those two off we spent $66.05 on actual food.

That my friends, is quite remarkable – for me at least.

I don’t think we will be down as low this coming week because I can see some things like laundry detergent, diapers and such that we will need to get next week.

I know we could probably go lower if we decided to eat purely from our food storage but I look at this whole month as a stepping stone to living a more needful, less materialistic overall life. So if I get a good sale to add to my food storage to replace something I used then, by golly, I’ll do it.

Other money I saved from getting sucked out of our account this week – Abner permitted me to cut his hair. Because I did it with scissors, don’t have any hair clippers anymore, it took a while. Probably a good hour fifteen minutes or at least we almost made it through the whole Napoleon Dynamite movie while I was feverously snipping. He was too mortified to have me take a picture (Not because it looked awful) but because he’s a teenager and that would be too embarrassing. And if he thought it was yuck he was kind enough not to tell me. I think it looks o.k. and I know several people at church said it looked good. I’m not comfortable cutting hair and it takes so long but I figure if I can round up some nice clippers and practice a bit then this could be a viable thing to do- permitting my boys keep allowing me to experiment.

This week I’m going to attempt something I’ve never in my life done before. I haven’t told Prince Erik about it yet because I don’t know if would scare the be-geebers out of him to know I was trying it. But I want to try it. May make a huge mess and wonder what in the blazes I was thinking but I’m going to give it the old college try and… get this… change the cruddy oil filter on the family tank. I think with it’s monster truck tires I should be able to wedge my rapidly shrinking body under it long enough to do the job.

The liquid sunshine is also supposed to hold off this week so I’m going to see if I can’t string up some line out back to hang dry some clothes as well. So wishing I had a clothesline still.

Right now I’m sure we are still in the honeymoon stage of seeing everything that we can do for ourselves. And I can see how making homemade bread can get tedious but until then I’m really beginning to enjoy seeing how little I can spend.

And if this month works well maybe I can encourage my kiddos’ to try it for yet another month and another, and just maybe we might be able to afford to take the Family to CA for a last big family trip to Disneyland before Abner leaves the nest.

Nothing but Needs

Well ,here we are at Day #1 of our Nothing but Needs, Back to the Basics, Simply Simple living month. Believe it or not I'm dang excited but scared silly all at the same time. The only thing is I'm a wee bit afraid of the whining I’m going to have to deal with when we tell the kids sorry but no McDonalds or snacks or DVD rentals or something they feel entitled to, but isn't really a need. We’ve sat down with them and explained the whole concept and they were fine with it until we got into details. So the devils in the details.

Even though I expect a little moaning from the munchkins I’m excited and very hopeful about the whole thing. But I’ve really been thinking about how many changes we are going to have to make that I've taken for granted.

For instance – my gym membership. Which my husband considers an investment but I am still going to try and go the month and work out totally at home and outside. Please pray it doesn’t rain everyday.

My husband is giving up driving his car to work for the entire month. On good days he will either ride his bicycle or his motorbike and on crummy weather days he will take his works free shuttle-bus.

The Kids are going to give up baths in our huge master bathtub. It’s large enough to be a swimming pool but I’ve made them promise to take quick showers.

Last night Evo-man told me that he needed a haircut. The boys are quite shaggy and I've been begging them all summer to get a trim. But no - wait until school starts and then ask. but guess what - I'm not taking them to the hair salon when I can cut it myself. When I told them this they were horrified. Mom... cut our hair... get out! Trouble is I haven't cut their hair for 10 years. I was tired of all the buzz clippers we killed because their hair is so freaking thick. So not only do I have to cut their hair but I have to do it with nothing but scissors. How's that for a back to basic. Maybe they will want to go shaggy for another month now.

There are so many other little details to living on needs only that I’m sure we will run into, and have to make decisions on, as we get started on this adventure. But I’m dang excited about the whole experience. We’ll see how I feel after a few days.

I know it seems like I've been commiting to doing a whole bunch of changes like over-coming the dreaded clutter monster, and losing weight. But this whole nothing but needs idea dovetails right into the other two. So I feel it' not going to be a strain to accomplish all three.

A few of you want to play along. I'll see if I can't then figure out about posting links to those people so you can see some of the different changes some other families are having to make. If you decide to join this challenge let me know and I'll add your link.

A Whole Lot of Nothing...

So I was checking out my friend Mother Owl Haven the other day and got tipped onto a great idea.

So our family has decided to play along. Nothing but Absolute Needs, and simple goodness for the entire month of September, and I can’t wait. I’ll be updating you on my progress every week. Can I handle taming my shopaholic tendencies? We’ll see?

I’m really motivated to get this going after writing out a check to the high school for around $200 for school class fees, student body cards, etc. And that was basically for only one of my six kids. So much for the money I was planning to spend on buying new back to school clothes.

I’ve got a couple of weeks to figure out how we are going to do it. So far the fast food, candy, movies, rentals, and stuff like that will be totally out of the picture. I’ll have to reach in my dusty bag of creative tricks to keep the family entertained on a budget of nothing. But I like challenges! Especially ones that result in more money staying in my pocket.

I was talking to Prince Erik and he wondered if he would have to give up the Bogus Basin Bike race he’s been training for all year. I told him I thought it would still be o.k. to do but we are rethinking how he will do it. Maybe we’ll have to find a friend near Boise that he could stay with so he doesn’t have to rent a hotel room. Pack his own food instead of eating out. Etc.

I’ve been tempted to stock pile a bunch of goodies to get ready for September but I think that would defeat the purpose of the challenge so I’m trying to live as close to normal up until day 1. In the next few days I’m also going to add up our averages to see how much we spend on utilities, groceries, gas etc. I’ll try and break them down so that I can really see how much we save by trying to stick to the whole nothing goal.

It might be similar to our No-Technology month of February. Dang hard to deal with at the beginning but easier and more fun near the end.

Anyway let me know if you want to play along. You can email me for the button’s code that you see above or check out Owl Haven’s blog to see her information on the whole wild and crazy idea. September can’t come soon enough for my bank balance – how bout yours.

Mad Sewing Skills -T-shirt Dress Style

What happens when you hang out with the World’s Best Seamstress (A.K.A My Mom)?

See she even dresses the part with the measuring tape necklace and scissors. Thankfully no one has been maimed or hurt yet when she walks with them. Anyway if you hang out with her long enough then your creative skills tend to bubble up from their long buried depths. Or at least I find myself thinking on a much thriftier, self-reliant train of thought while I’m around her.

My brain thinking wheels thankfully started turning because of Hope (yes, her again). I should find interesting stuff about my other kids to blog about or rename this blog ‘Living with Hope’. Anyway, Hope loves wearing dresses. Makes her feel like a Princess. Thing is, cheap, durable dresses are hard to come buy and she is constantly stripping down and handing me her nice but extremely delicate Sunday dresses and begging me to help her put on her princess dress. So my big sewing project I decided to tackle while killing time at Grandmas home this week was T-shirt dresses for my girls.

So I paid about $24 bucks for 6 shirts. Three Kid decorative and Three Adult Plain.
For the Two Year Old I bought a size 4-5 Decorative Tee, and an Adult Medium Pain Tee
For the Six Year Old I bought a size 7-8 Decorative Tee, and an Adult Medium Plain Tee
For the Nine Year Old I got a size 14-16 Decorative Tee, and an Adult Large Plain Tee – However next time I think I’d get the Plain Tee in a XL or XXL size.

I hacked up the shirts like so….

Taking about 4 inches off the bottom of the decorative Tee’s and cutting the adult pain tee’s just below the sleeve line. However I made the 9 Year old longer and I tapered it a bit so I could use almost all the material from the neck down. I left the bottom shirt seam on the plain tees alone so I wouldn’t have to re-do the hems.

Next step – Gather the top cut part of the plain tee’s (future skirt). My mom showed me this trick and I’ve always used it to gather material. Sew a zigzag stitch over a larger thread and to gather just pull on the larger thread while bunching the fabric.

Then you pair the gathered skirt with the decorative tee – Right sides together and pin them in place.

If you have a Serger

(Lucky) this would be great but you can sew these two sides together with a regular sewing machine as well.

Flip them right side out and top stitch around the waist on the none gathered side of the decorative Tee.

TaDa! In my first attempt I've just made three dresses. But wait that's not all.

Hope now has a new Princess Dress.

Princess doesn't think this is a bad idea. She likes it too!

And Lea loves the opportunity to model.

Now if you’re related to the world best seamstress then you can take the Tee-shirt scrapes and make the 2 year old a bonus dress. Don’t ask me how? It’s a little too complicated for me to explain in this blog. Maybe future one? I somehow managed it and I think it’s my favorite of the three dresses.

But I like them all. Now Hope has some play dresses that will last and she might give her Sunday dresses a break.

$24 worth of Six tee-shirts = Four dresses at $6 buck-a-roo’s a piece. And it took about 2 ½-3 hours to complete the entire project. I think I’ll have to make some more when I get home. Definately worth my time.

Slave to the Strawberry!

Every year around berry picking time I load the kids in the Gas-Guzzle Beast and head off for the nearby U-Pick Fields. This year the strawberries are a good three weeks, if not more, behind schedule. But we were there opening day. And so was everyone else and their grandparents, and neighbors, and kids, and moms, and a few reluctant teenagers (O.K. I guess I was the only one to bring teenagers) etc.

The pick director took one look at the six kids and myself and sent us to the far corner of the fields. I guessed we looked like trouble and the flag lady figured with us near the edge we would wreak less havoc.

This year the berries were a little smaller, and a little more expensive than last year. However, nothing compares to fresh strawberries, every one so juicy sweet, you can’t help but go back year after year. Store bought well I’ve never tasted store bought that tastes like fresh.
Even though I took six kids I probably only had two really good pickers.

Abner and Lea have some mad berry picking skills. T-rev would have been right there with them but I set him on Hope after she decided to start visiting the neighboring pickers and stepping on the berry bushes in an effort to make new friends. Princess would pick one here or there, but was more interested in talking about how they looked and asking questions about how the plants grow and why Abner was picking one row instead of another, and on and on. If only her hand worked as fast as her little mouth we would have had double the volume of berries picked. Evo-man picked about a handful of berries and decided he would rather go sit in the vehicle. I didn’t feel like fighting so I let him. Just wait the story gets better.

Less than an hour later we had a good 4 flats picked and decided to leave the rest for more serious pickers.

On the way home we dropped off some of our berries at a friends home so the kids could count one of their 1000 acts of service. And once we got home and sat the berries on the table – Wham!

I suddenly realized that I’d better do something with them. I couldn’t just pick and buy 36 lbs of strawberries and expect them to just sit there. So I pulled out of the cobwebs my old canning supplies. Haven’t touched much of it in the last 5 years but now was as good as time as any.

Freezer jam is my favorite but my old freezer is an ancient hand-me-down from my grandparents and since it could go any day I try not to put too many valuables in it. So I only made one batch of freezer jam and about 10 bags of whole frozen berries. That way if the food storage unit decides to self-destruct I can take the thawed berries and turn them into canned jam.

Since I had some little canning jars in storage I decided to can most of the strawberries instead. Regardless eight hours...

5 batches of jam later, another trip to the store to buy pectin and sugar, and around 12:30 a.m. I finished destroying my (just barely paid to be cleaned) kitchen with a sticky berry mess. Evo-man redeemed himself by being the official berry masher and mashing most of the berries I needed. He volunteered to help which about floored me because he never volunteers for anything.

Financially it would have been more practical to freeze all the berries whole and not bother with the whole time-consuming jam thing. It would definitely be cheaper to cut coupons and stock up on Smuckers when it’s on sale. But dang, it feels good to see 34 cute little ½ pint jars of canned jam, 7 containers of freezer jam and 10 bags of frozen berries done and finished. And to know that my biggest helper in the end was the one kid I expected to avoid helping at all costs. That whole one-on-one berry smashing talk session and the pride of accomplishment thing makes up for the extra cost. That and I know even though it’s been awhile, somewhere buried deep down, my mad canning skills that I inherited from my mom are still, kind of, functioning.