July 22, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

This summer has proven to be incredibly busy, much busier than I expected.  A few weeks ago, I felt like the Lord was tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to get organized quickly and declutter as much as we can. We have some elderly family members who might need assistance, and we need to prepare for that possibility.  So I have kicked myself into high gear, trying to school on our year-round schedule, do my job and handle the garden and daily chores in addition to the extra workload this presented.  And we have managed to accomplish everything on a shoestring budget while we save for some needed car and home repairs.

Despite spending time gardening and even expanding our garden, we have lost most of what we planted.  What the Mexican bean beetles and squash vine borers didn’t destroy, the chickens did when the town mowed down a post of our garden fence when they were tending the ditch with their machinery.  The chickens got in and decimated what was growing in short order.  What we have left is some green tomatoes we hope will ripen, about 5 sunflowers that are now over 10 feet tall, and we’re waiting now to see how the potatoes did.  The onions are still tiny, despite supposedly being close to time to be pulled.  We have replanted the winter squash on Monday and we’re now organizing to put the fall and winter garden in.

The last few weeks I have spent time at the farmer’s market, buying wholesale.  The Lord has plopped some incredible deals on produce in our lap.  While canning I worked a full week of VBS at our church and managed to wear myself out between the two.  We processed our extra roosters over a period of two weeks and sent them to freezer camp.  We cleaned out the freezer that needed defrosting and got everything organized in an effort to have enough space to hopefully purchase half of a cow this fall.  I found I had one whole shelf full of stock bones that I need to use. I also got all of the remaining meats grouped by type, to better help me plan our meals and use what we have wisely.

I have started setting up ‘centers’ for everything I do at home, where everything needed for that project is centrally located to where the work is performed.  I have created centers for laundry, baking, dry goods in use, personal care, herbs, school and work, gardening and more.  This inspiration came from listening to Vicki Bentley at the NCHE conference Memorial Day Weekend.  Vicki is an excellent speaker, and if you ever have the opportunity to hear her, I highly encourage you to do so.  I would be willing to drive to a conference just to hear her speak, she gave so much inspiration, encouragement and practical advice.  (You can purchase MP3s of Vicki’s presentations from the conference here.)  Her chore and star chart information alone has been a huge help to me in getting my kids motivated to do chores and take initiative without being asked.  Vicki said in one of her presentations that if you spend just 5 minutes looking for one item every morning and every evening, you waste over 60 hours a year.  I have found that I am going up and down the hallway and the stairs too often because things are not centrally located, and I wish to free up that time so I can accomplish more.

For the baking and dry good centers, I took one cabinet and placed my measuring cups and measuring spoons along with mason jars of xanthan gum, salt, baking soda, baking powder on the bottom shelf.  In racks hanging below the cabinet are all of my spices.  Each spice has a label on the lid so I don’t have to hunt for the correct one.  The rapadura, flours and dry goods are located behind me on a baker’s rack.  Each item in stored in a quart to half-gallon size mason jar with a labeled lid.  I do not have to take extra steps in the kitchen, saving me time and energy.  We also reorganized and deep cleaned the kitchen.

For the laundry center, we reorganized the laundry room so that we now have a rotating system for the clothes hangers, separated by type.  Each day when we get dressed, the empty clothes hangers get hung on each bedroom doorknob.  One child is tasked with the chore of retrieving all of the clothes hangers, taking them downstairs and putting each hanger where it belongs.  This has solved the problems with wrinkled clothing and additional ironing time because it had to be hauled up the stairs after coming out of the dryer while we hunt for the clothes hangers that fit the item.  And you know any time kids haul a piece of clothing, it’s bound to wind up wrinkled.  ;)  All of the different clothing and fabric types now each have their own bin to facilitate quick sorting and washing of the laundry. We finally installed the utility sink that we purchased in 2007 in the laundry room.

For our school supplies we use daily, we repurposed a rolling cart which is now located within reach of my computer.  We also located a bookcase and the filing cabinet beside my desk in order to facilitate school, bill paying and handling my job.  Now, when mail comes in, I can handle it immediately and drop it right into the correct file folder in the filing cabinet.  Paper doesn’t have to be handled twice, nothing gets lost and I don’t worry about any bills or other important paperwork getting missed.  We located a locking cabinet with doors in an unused area of the living room that holds shoe-box sized rubermaid containers.  These boxes contain our items that are in pieces, such as the math blocks and flashcards, as well as the games and the small-piece items such as K-nex and Legos.

I updated my household binder (Flylady style) and created binders for family recipes, every mailer I have published, our school records, and the gardening and homesteading records.  I also have one binder where I keep info on ideas or things I want to try, build plans for potential projects and the like.

I obtained two rolling carts, one for each child.  These carts now hold the library books and are parked beside the homeschool cabinet. These carts are incredibly handy and stop the problem of having to haul the books to the car and into the library, breaking my back.  This has just about eliminated our hunting for a book that is due and it keeps the books out of the kid’s bedrooms.

I created two memory card boxes.  I used the Simply Charlotte Mason Memory System and made one for our scripture verses and made one for the myriad of other things I wish my children to memorize.  We have included everything from family members phone numbers to poems, science and history facts, songs and more.  These boxes set atop our rolling school supply cart.

I still have to get the dining room chairs recovered so we can reclaim our dining room table.  We are also looking for an effective storage solution for our canning jars, both full and empty.  Both of these projects are likely going to take some cash, so I’m looking for the most workable solution that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Posted in Homeschooling, frugality, Organization- inside, Kids, Gardening, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

March 15, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

My children are prone to complain if they see the same meal too many times in a row.  To keep them from getting food boredom, I often take leftovers and turn them into something new. I do pinto beans on a Monday night, doubling the beans and setting the extra aside.  I serve cornbread for dinner on Tuesday or Wednesday, and the following day for lunch I serve the reheated beans spooned over the cornbread.  For me and the kids, we’ll eat three slices of cornbread and a third to a half a pound of dry beans for a lunch.

Final cost- 73 cents a serving using organic beans or 67 cents a serving for conventional.  If you can use cornmeal that isn’t gluten-free, it will be a cheaper meal. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in leftovers, Nut-free, Soy-Free, Lunch, lazy cooking, crock-pot, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, recipe, Gluten-Free | Print | 1 Comment »

March 11, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

I am often appalled at the price of hot cereals, especially gluten-free hot cereals.  If you have a blender or a grain mill, you can make them for a fraction of the cost of the commercially produced products and they will be fresher.  Rice farina is the perfect example of this.  Bob’s Red Mill sells it for $17.72 for 7 pounds, which comes out to $2.53 a pound.  You can get whole rice for the normal price of 40 cents a pound around here, probably less if you go to an ethnic market, and then do about 3 minute’s worth of work yourself to save the $2.13 difference.  I have also done this with sorghum and had excellent results.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Egg-Free, Nut-free, Soy-Free, breakfast, recipe, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, Gluten-Free | Print | 1 Comment »

March 9, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

This recipe has been one of the most requested and most loved dessert recipes I have used in the menu mailer.  I have modified it here to be more budget-friendly and usable for breakfast.

Clafouti (from the Menu Mailer)

Total meal cost $1.80, 60 cents a serving Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Menu Mailer, Nut-free, Soy-Free, breakfast, recipe, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, Gluten-Free | Print | No Comments »

March 5, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

It seems so many are struggling with their finances right now.  My husband has been unemployed since May, so we know the struggle well.  I’d like to share some of the recipes we use to help keep the food costs down.  These prices are assuming that you are not buying in bulk and are shopping at a health food store.  I will be posting a series of recipes over the next few weeks.

Latkas (from the Menu Mailer, Volume 3 Week 20)

Total meal cost $1.25, 31 cents a serving without applesauce or sour cream and not reclaiming the oil Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Menu Mailer, Nut-free, Soy-Free, breakfast, recipe, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, Gluten-Free | Print | No Comments »

February 8, 2010 by KerryAnn Foster.

The kids and I survived the big storm last weekend while Jeff was gone, without incident.  We then had a storm that was mostly ice this weekend that took out our power for a few hours and the phone/internet for two days.  We’re expecting another mild storm beginning Tuesday with sleet and snow.  We just can’t catch a break with the weather and the whole Eastern Seaboard is in the same boat with some spots currently having 3 feet of snow.  We still have not had an opportunity to clear the garden or re-do the chicken coop shavings thanks to this incredibly wet weather.  Locally there have been rock slides and other such assorted nastiness from ground that is too wet.  The river by our house is amazingly high but not flooding.  Yet.  This is the highest we’ve ever seen the river, and we still have more rain, sleet and snow coming this week.

This week we will use the last of the wood we had purchased to heat our home through the winter.  This winter has been so difficult that many are saying they’re in the same situation.  We’re having trouble finding anyone to deliver firewood since so many other people are also trying to purchase more.  In a normal winter we’d go through approximately three-and-a-half full cords of wood (as opposed to a face cord) from September to April and this year we’ll likely go through about five cords by the time we can stop using the fireplace at night.  The type of wood you purchase determines how long a cord will last you, as certain types burn longer and hotter than others.  This chart tells you how much heat each type of wood puts out.

Considerations and Questions

Be sure you know the difference between a full cord (4′x4′x8′) and a face cord (4′ high x 8′ long x varying lengths of pieces) and the average price of different types of woods before you begin calling people who are advertising wood in the local paper or places like Craig’s List.  Know the maximum length of the wood pieces your stove can accommodate- 18 inches is standard.  Be sure to ask how long the wood has been seasoned- you don’t want wood that has been seasoned less than eight months to a year for the maximum heat output and minimal creosote production.  Wood that isn’t seasoned can cause a fire risk due to creosote build-up in the chimney.  Kiln drying can shorten the amount of seasoning time needed.

We prefer to avoid poplar as the bulk of the load because it produces more ash than other woods for less heat output.  Ash output is a consideration to stretch the time between cleaning out the ashes to help us time our fires so we can clean out the box when it isn’t as cold of a day.  Poplar is easier to light, so we do use some of it for starting a fire with fatlighter.  Loads of mixed types of wood will be cheaper than all one type.  Another thing to consider in the price is if they stack the wood on delivery and if they charge for delivery.   Most delivery men just dump it in your driveway and will charge an additional fee to stack it for you.  You can get a discount if you pick it up yourself but we have found that the price difference isn’t worth the hours of work, especially when you figure in the cost of the gasoline.  Ask around to people you know about what the local prices are for different types of wood to have an idea of what is reasonable before agreeing on delivery.

Savings

We keep our house at 60 degrees with the thermostat and heat the living area with the wood heater.  I desperately hate heat pumps for a variety of reasons (unless you live in Florida), but because we do not have the correct R value and installation of insulation in our walls we can not heat our house exclusively with wood.  Our power bill runs about $65-100 a month during the winter (depending on how much I use the dryer) as I am extremely careful with our energy usage.  During the month of December, we babysat my parent’s parrots and raised the thermostat to 65 degrees and kept the living room around 75 degrees using the fireplace.  Our power bill went up about $130 for that colder than average month for the extra five degrees.  Considering one cord of non-dense wood costs about $130 here, the use of firewood can be a significant cost savings if you are able to drop your thermostat while burning the wood.

During the December power outage, we were able to keep the living area 10-15 degrees warmer than the back of the house and over 20 degrees warmer than the basement thanks to to the wood heater by hanging a blanket in the hallway to trap the heat in the living room and using a three-blade ecofan my husband had purchased on clearance to push the rising heat into the room.

Finally, consider that depending of the type of wood heater you have, you might be able to heat water/leftovers or cook on top as an additional form of savings.  You might be able to heat up a soup for lunch or if you have one that can accommodate a modified toaster box or a camp/stove top oven, even bake on top of your wood heater.

Posted in heat, frugality, Homesteading | Print | No Comments »