Frugal Accomplishments

We did a pretty good job this week with our frugal accomplishments, with one minor frugal fail.  We did some traveling, but we tried to use our gift cards to limit the financial impact.  It was a great long weekend with family and cousins.  We did an early Thanksgiving dinner and early Christmas with the kids, which was super fun.  There are some great family pictures of the kids decorating cookies and all crowded in on the couch in their pajamas watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  So fun!

Here's the details of this past week:

• Cooked all meals at home including black bean chili, whole wheat pizza, salad, butternut squash casserole, smoothies, and muffins
• Frugal fail:  forgot to turn the heat down on the overnight crock pot oatmeal, and now it's a burned on mess.  Will use baking soda and water with it on high for a while to remove burned mess.  Totally bummed... was really looking forward to it!
• Had free dinner with our parenting class on Monday, which was so appreciated.  Saved us some money, time and frustration with clean up.
• Used gift cards earned from our parenting class to pay for gas for our trip.  We ended up taking the least fuel efficient car because the better one was making a weird noise.  We didn't want to get stranded on the highway on a holiday weekend with two little ones.  We'll get the other car looked at this week so it's good for travel over Thanksgiving.
• Used another gift card to pay for gifts for the kiddos.  I try really hard to do gifts that don't contribute to the amount of "stuff" we all accumulate, so I purchased some craft kits and gingerbread house kits for each family.  
• We also made our standard holiday chocolate caramel popcorn.  It is always a hit and really easy and relatively inexpensive.  We substitute pecans for the peanuts, because we like them better and generally have them on hand.  It's really nice to make gifts that are consumable, so that it's not something else for folks to store, when we're all really trying to simplify things in our lives.
• My cousin made sugar cookie dough earlier in the week, so we made those with the kids on Saturday morning.  It was so fun, and even the little ones (18-19 months) got involved.  It's relatively cheap to make, and was such a great time for the cousins.  Having the dough ahead of time really helped out.
• I brought frozen tomatoes and bell peppers (from the food pantry) from our freezer to make chili on Friday with the cousins for dinner.  We also took our crock pot, in case we needed a second for the large crowd.  Having these ingredients really helped save on prep time and cost, which meant we had more time together as a family.
• Graciously accepted steel cut oats, date almond balls, popping corn, and Kind bars from the food pantry this week.  These things will really help round out our pantry and help us keep our grocery bill in check.
• Grateful for snacks that family offered throughout the weekend.  Those helped us through the road trip, and it was nice for the boys to try some new things.
• Stopped at Aldi on the way back home, which was a nice break for us all (especially after getting stuck in traffic for over an hour), and restocked the fridge at a cheaper price than usual.  We were able to get a lot of organic produce for cheaper than we could have at Harris Teeter.
• Thankful that our tenant kept Lavender for us, which made our trip a lot less stressful.  
• Mom picked up take-out for us for dinner last night, because we got home late from the trip.  So grateful for this, and it was a new food experience for the boys.  They loved it, so we'll repeat it sometime.  It also gave us leftovers for lunch for today.
• Received a paper grocery sack full of hand-me-down clothes for the boys, which is so generous.  Glad for these.  (Now we just need to go through the baby things and begin consigning them.)

What did you do to live and save green this past week?  I'd love to hear from you!

February Menu Plan

This month is all about using up some of what we have.  I did take advantage of Harris Teeter's Super Doubles event, but aside from that, we're really going to try to stay away from the grocery store except for absolute necessities.  I plan to use some of what we have in our freezer and pantry, including some things like powdered milk, frozen veggies from our CSA, frozen bread, and scraps that have been saved for making stock.  We're also going to continue to take advantage of gleaning from the food pantry to stretch our budget too.

We're also going to try to save some money on our electric bill with cooking too.  We'll work to use our crock pot to do the heavy lifting and use the microwave or toaster oven for reheating.  We'll only use our upper oven, which is smaller, for baking when necessary.

Here's the plan:

Breakfasts:  egg and cheese sandwiches, overnight oatmeal in the crock pot, smoothies using frozen fruit, french toast casserole with frozen blueberries, bagels and cream cheese, toast with jam, and whole wheat waffles with fruit and hard boiled eggs, winter squash muffins, strawberry cream cheese coffee cake, blueberry muffins, cappuccino chocolate chip muffins

Lunches:  leftovers filled in with fresh fruit or yogurt, egg salad sandwiches, PBJ

Dinners:  tomato basil soup (we make it without cream so it has other uses too), meatball subs with tomato basil soup as marinara, fajitas with rice, leftover turkey, and frozen peppers and onions, corn chowder with garlic toast, potato soup with homemade turkey stock and garlic toast, waffles with fruit and sausage, black beans and rice with fixin's and corn bread, black bean chili, homemade pizza (x4), french toast with smoothies and sausage, jambalya, crock pot Asian chicken over rice, veggie stir fry over rice with egg rolls

Batch cooking for freezer:  homemade turkey stock, homemade veggie stock, black beans, muffins

Special Meal:  We will celebrate Valentine's Day later in the month, so that my mom can keep little man overnight.  We'll do a dinner out and make some peppermint brownies with icecream as our dessert at home.  We'll do an early dinner and take advantage of a coupon we have, so that we can have time for an at home movie with dessert.  The cost of this meal will come out of our regular grocery budget, if possible.

Snacks:  popcorn, chocolate mint cookies (we have some cookie dough we purchased from a fundraiser that we need to use up), fresh fruit, nuts, toast and jam

Drinks:  water, hot tea, hot cocoa, maybe iced tea made with loose tea

What are you cooking up this month?  I'd love to hear from you!

Frugal Accomplishments

We continue to try to find new ways to save money, and increase our income, as we work toward our budget and savings goals.  We did pretty well over the past two weeks (yes, got behind last week with posting).  Here are our successes, since we had very little in the way of unexpected expenses.

• Cooked all meals at home, including corn chowder, veggie stir fry, crock pot Asian chicken, fajitas with leftover turkey, French toast and smoothies, crock pot overnight oatmeal, and cream cheese strawberry coffee cake.
• Tried to cook mostly from the pantry and freezer.  Only one grocery trip for some staples totaling $10.
• Took advantage of lots of things from the food pantry including:  two gallons of milk, four loaves of bread/bags of rolls/bagels, five containers of cut up peppers and onions, four whole bell peppers, one avocado, five tomatoes, two apples, two kiwi, one onion,  several zucchini, package of green beans, three packages of strawberries, package of brown rice, two packages of mince meat filling, nine cartons of yogurt, and a soft herb and garlic cheese.  
• Froze many peppers and onions for later use.  Used some to make fajitas.
• Processed strawberries (many were too soft or moldy) to yield three cups for coffee cake.
• Froze two loaves of bread for later use.
• Used three tomatoes for fajitas, and one for homemade guacamole using the avocado.  
• Gleaned from school cafeteria again:  three apples, two cheese sticks, two cartons of yogurt, three packages of Goldfish, and two packages of Chex mix.
• Composted all kitchen scraps, including paper towels, tea bags, coffee grounds, and brown cardboard tubes.
• Recycled anything possible, keeping household trash to about one kitchen bag every two weeks.
• Had a day of professional development with lunch provided.  Brought home enough leftovers to provide another lunch.
• Enjoyed a few shared meals with family, saving on dishes and some food cost and prep.
• Used a gift card to take little man on a morning date to the bakery.  Took my own coffee mug and used the discount card to save on the purchase.  Also got to take him to school, which was a fun treat for both of us.
• Continued with unseasonably mild weather, allowing us to hang some clothes outside to dry.  Washed all clothing in cold water.
• Used cloth diapers, washed at home, and hung to dry.
• Showered every other day, saving on hot water, shampoo, and soap.  Also saves my skin, since the air is dryer this time of year.
• Enjoyed a fun social event of a birthday party.  Food was provided, so dinner wasn't really needed that night.  We took a handmade tie dye t-shirt as a gift, with a card and bag decorated by little man.
• Met with our financial planner and set up 529 accounts for both boys.  We will have the $50/month deducted automatically from my paycheck.  With our savings from the changes in health insurance, we'll never miss the money.
• Plan to contribute an additional $100/month to Benny's retirement account to try to make up for some of what we haven't contributed over the past few years since he's been home with the boys.
• Exercised at home using You Tube and my yoga mat (we have not had cable since building the house almost nine years ago).  Walked with the family after work on pretty days.
• Benny earned some extra money doing some online advertising for a painter.  This helped to pay for new shoes he ordered, which he really needed for work and for home since his others were worn in the soles and had holes in the canvas tops.
• Considering purchasing a new to us car, which we're having looked at by our mechanic today.  I dropped off the car and walked to school, which is convenient and provides me some good exercise.
• Working on a professional development fellowship application.  I am hopeful that this will provide me with some good networking and publishing opportunities, as well as a stipend that would really help us to pay down the rest of our home equity line debt.
• Continue to advertise the upstairs bedroom space for rental.  We are hopeful that our current downstairs tenant will stay on with us, but should know in the next day or two if we need to advertise.
• Continue to post items on eBay for sale, decluttering our closets and helping us to pay for our CSA share this year.

What did you do to live and save green this past week?  I'd love to hear from you!

Last Week's Frugal Accomplishments

It was another snowy week for us, so that meant that I got to stay at home while Benny went to work.  He was able to work almost a full 40 hour week, so we will appreciate that income in savings.  Little man and I did not venture out because of our snow-covered road, so we were able to save on gas as well, since I was not driving to work each day.

We made all meals at home, except for Saturday lunch with friends (we took a salad) when the snow cleared and Sunday dinner with my mom (we again took a salad).  Our "winter" salads consist of loose spinach, citrus, dried fruit, nuts/seeds (whatever we have on hand), and some feta cheese if we have it.  They are always tasty and well received, and a cinch to put together.  We also made vegetable soup in the crock pot (clean out the freezer soup), homemade french bread (four loaves), flat bread with olive oil dipping sauce, homemade pizza with white sauce, lentil sloppy joes with roasted asparagus and oven fries, broccoli apple salad, double batch of quiche, zucchini banana flaxseed muffins, breakfast oatmeal cookies (these weren't our favorite, but little man liked them and they helped use up bananas in the freezer), and banana chocolate chip muffins.

We continued to minimize waste by composting as much as possible.  I started a batch of citrus infused vinegar to use for cleaning using peels that would have otherwise gone to the compost.  Once they're done infusing the vinegar, they can go to the compost.  Also, I began drying orange peels for use in a powdered cleaner using baking soda, borax, and ground citrus peels.  Froze more orange peels for use in marmalade later, or for candied peels.  I will post later about the recipes for these and their effectiveness.  We we are really trying to use organic cleaners now that little man is big enough to help with simple cleaning like wiping counters, and it is nice to be able to use something that would otherwise be considered waste.

I read more on perennial herbs that grow well for our area and began planning our spring gardens.  I would like to remove some of our hosta plants that the deer ate last year and replace them with herbs that can be used in the kitchen and for crafts.  (The herbs do not seem to be something the deer are interested in eating.)  I am thinking of planting some new types of sage, more chives (we love these and would like to use them more), dill, more varieties of basil, lovage, and more lavender.  I might also plant some nasturtiums also; they would be pretty on salads.

We used the gas logs more to offset the electric heat.  This was really effective one day, because the heat didn't come on until the sun started to set.  We keep our heat pretty low at 62 degrees anyway, to conserve more energy.

We washed and reused plastic bags and containers.  I am in the process of gathering our large jars from Costco (sun dried tomatoes, olives, etc.) to repurpose for storage containers for items we buy from bulk bins (corn meal, specialty flours, lentils, etc.).  Strangers and Pilgrims has fun pantry labels for containers like these and other wonderful homemaking ideas.

All laundry was hung to dry, and we continued to use our cloth diapers, wipes, and family cloth.  I wore the same jeans all week, since I didn't really leave the house and didn't get them dirty.  Sweaters were worn more than one day also, saving on laundry time and supplies.

We did a small grocery run and kept it to about $20.  This included stocking up on dish soap, frozen salmon, frozen meatballs (I prefer to buy local, grassfed beef, but we're out until market season), oranges and strawberries (a treat, but on sale), canned tomatoes, free shampoo, and frozen veggies.  Southern Savers really helps us out here by matching up store sales with coupons, and it's free, unlike the Grocery Game that we used to use.  (Though it doesn't always seem as comprehensive or quite as accurate for our area as the Grocery Game.)

A few of our eBay postings sold, so that's money we can put toward our CSA subscription for this year.  I can't wait for that to start again!  I'm so ready for fresh local veggies again.  It really does help make our meal planning easier and it allows us to spend less during the spring and summer months on groceries in general.  It's also nice to be able to stock the freezer with the extras so that we have local produce in the winter too.

On a non-frugal note, we think our microwave is about to go (it's beeping and changing screens, even when no one is using it or anywhere around).  It's an over the stove, integrated hood type, so it's not cheap to replace.  We're thinking we'd like to replace it with an actual range hood and a counter top microwave.  We've discovered that we don't use all the fancy features that came with it, and we'd rather have an actual vented hood.  We're thinking that the tax return we get should cover the costs of this replacement, plus maybe our water filter for the house too, so at least it wouldn't have to come out of savings.

What did you do to live and save green last week?  I'd love to hear from you!  I'm linking up to The Prudent Homemaker and Strangers and Pilgrims this week.

Cutting Christmas Costs without the Cutting the Celebration

We've had to cut back on our overall budget in several ways, but holidays was one easy place to trim quite a bit.  I love the holidays; the decorating, wrapping, celebrating, and baking.  But our culture often tells us that the more we spend on these things, the better.  Here are a few ways we trim the budget, while not trimming the spirit.

Decorating

Several years ago, we bought some lighted garland at an after Christmas sale, so it was deeply discounted.  That same year, we bought some plastic metallic ornaments, snowflakes, etc.  We use these each year to decorate the handrail to upstairs and the mantle.  I use a lot of my silver plated stuff to sprinkle in on the mantle to add more sparkle, which I already had.  Much of this stuff is sentimental too:  Grandma's silver candle sticks, a set of pottery candle sticks given to us by my aunt, a silver platter we bought at an antique store on a date one time.  I use wired ribbon to weave through things too, which can be reused each year.

We have several artificial wreaths I decorated over the years which we store in plastic bags.  This is the easiest decorating ever... just pull the bag off and hang it on the door!

Outside we do very little.  Most of this is because we don't know if it will blow away or get covered in snow or ice for weeks on end.  We do put window candles in our windows, and some years, we scavenge tree trimmings from friends to use outside.  These trimmings I stick in some all-weather flower pots (not pottery, they will crack if you have big temperature fluctuations) and fill the pot with water.  Then, the water will freeze, holding the branches in place.  You could do the same with holly branches, etc.  These just end up being more festive if we have snow fall.

Wrapping and Cards

I've gotten in the habit of saving large pieces of wrapping paper and gift bags for years.  Now we have a substantial stash, so we reuse these.  Often we reuse the wrapping paper for kids gifts, since this paper is more likely to be torn.  We also reuse tissue paper for stuffing gift bags and for wrapping stocking gifts.  My great aunt, who grew up in the Depression era, has mastered wrapping without tape, which is a skill I have yet to learn, but would love to.  These strategies save us lots of money, as well as save valuable paper resources.

We save the fronts of gift cards and Christmas cards to use as gift tags or upcycle into new Christmas cards.  I also make hand-stamped Christmas and thank you notes, which saves a ton of money over buying gift cards.  I use my ink rewards from Staples to "buy" cardstock and envelopes, so I have only the cost of the stamps and ink invested.  This year, we'll take advantage of some of the great photo deals out there on photo sites to print a family portrait to give with Christmas cards.

Gift Giving and Celebrating

When it comes to gift giving, we're all about homemade. We make jams and jellies throughout the summer and fall to give.  I've also found some recipes for homemade soup mixes, which are fun to give with a loaf of homemade bread.  Giving bread is cheaper than giving cookies because there's less sugar, chocolate, or nuts involved, all of which are expensive when compared to the cost of a bulk bag of flour.  We also make homemade vanilla extract for the bakers in the family, and I put away a few pounds of herb butter in the freezer made from herbs we grew this summer.  For some friends, they'll get a loaf of homemade French bread and a stick of herb butter.  All of these are gifts that come from the heart and are genuinely appreciated, and they cost us far less than buying something for everyone on our list.  Giving a gift certificate for services is also fun.  I gave my mom a gift certificate for a bread a month, which was really fun.  She didn't use it every month, but she did enjoy it when she took advantage, and it was nice when she was entertaining for her to not have to worry about that, but just call me to bake a loaf for her.

We also get creative about how we purchase gifts that we need to.  We use Amazon credit, I'll use Recyclebank points to give magazine subscriptions, or we'll purchase used and upcycle.  We might buy some picture frames at the thrift store and remix them into something that suits the recipient, and give a family portrait that way.

You can also get creative with celebrating.  We do lots of potlucks this season, where everyone brings their favorite holiday side dish.  Sometimes, we've done a Feliz Navidad theme, which is kind of fun and a nice departure from all the same kinds of foods.  By going potluck, it takes the pressure off the host and means everyone got at least one thing they like to eat.  By hosting, it means that we get to enjoy everyone getting together, and it's far cheaper than eating out with everyone (and less chaos since most of us have kids).

Baking

I save on baking this time of year with the same basic grocery strategies we use all year.  Buy in bulk, use coupons, shop sales, etc.  This time of year is a great time to stock up on baking necceties, though.  There are always sales and coupons for spices, brown sugar, nuts, etc.  I try to save a portion of November's grocery budget just for stocking up on baking supplies so I don't have to buy them later in the year.  I'll try to buy enough brown sugar this month with coupons and sales to last us for the year.  We'll stock the freezer with fresh cranberries this time of year so we can make cranberry muffins, bread, and cranberry chutney throughout the year.  We love all these things, and the chutney is great on bagels with cream cheese or mixed into oatmeal.  The chopped frozen cranberries are also great in popsicles or cooked with cabbage as a side dish.

How do you save green at Christmas?  I'd love to hear from you!

(Re)use it or lose it

By now you know that we are all about repurposing items around our home.  Not only is this green because it keeps it out of the waste stream, but it often keeps us from having to purchase something new.  This means that there's more money in our savings account.  Here are a few things that we've repurposed recently.

Spray bottle:  Rather than purchasing one for our homemade shower cleaner, we repurposed one from some laundry stain remover we had used up.  This has been great!  We use it daily, and it's held up well.  When you repurpose bottles like this, it's important to relabel them clearly so that everyone in the house knows what they're now used for.

Mason jars:  We use mason jars (or large spaghetti sauce jars) for storing all kinds of items.  They're great for storing grains in the fridge that we don't use as often, and we use them for storing brown sugar, dried beans, and other pantry staples.  I'm really digging the old vintage blue glass ones right now, so I'd love to find a few of those at garage sales or thrift stores.  They make pretty casual summer time flower vases too.

Plastic food containers:  We often repurpose plastic sour cream containers and the like for lots of things.  They are great containers for holding water for painting projects.  The larger ones also make good containers for holding paint if you're painting trim in your house.  We also use them to start seeds for the garden, by poking holes in the bottom for drainage.  Lately, though, we've found that our little one loves the small ones.  He's got a drawer in the kitchen dedicated to his kitchen things, and these are perfect for him to throw around and play with, and it saves our regular ones from getting as beat up.

Paper bags:  We rarely use paper towels, but when we finally ran out of a roll this week, I used a piece of a brown paper bag to drain bacon on.  It worked great, and it saved a trip to the store for a roll of paper towels.  The larger ones also make fun gift wrap if you cut them apart, and of course you can use smaller ones for lunch sacks.

Rubber bands:  We save our rubber bands from produce.  These get used to seal all sorts of things, but they also make a good makeshift child lock if you have a kid who doesn't yank too hard on the cabinet doors.

Produce bags:  The plastic bags from produce purchases get reused in our home for storing our homemade bread.  We used to purchase bread bags, but we've started using these instead because they're free and generally pretty clean.  Usually we can reuse them a few times before they get a hole in them and have to be tossed.

What about you?  Anything you reuse that others might toss?  I'd love to hear from you!

Cash from Junk: Paying for our CSA share

It's no secret that we love our CSA share.  The farm we work with, Creek Song, is fabulous and always provides great produce.  It's wonderful that it's all organic and it is always super fresh and great for our family.  This year, we decided that we wanted to purchase a full share so that we could can and freeze some of the extra produce to use in soups, stews, and stir fries throughout the winter.

However, the $500 share fee wasn't in our $100/month grocery budget and we didn't want to use our savings to pay for the CSA.  So, we had to come up with a way to pay for the share that wouldn't dip into our savings.  Enter:  Raygan's closet, or more accurately, the junk we've stored in his closet.  It has become abundantly clear over the past few months that our little guy is growing and will need the closet space sooner than later, which meant our junk had to go.  Since we're giving up about 800+ square feet of our basement and upstairs for rental income, this space is now out for storage.  So, we evaluated... did we really need the junk?  How much of it had we actually used in the past year or so?  If we hadn't, we sorted it... keep (mostly if we saw that it had reasonable future use), donate (if we saw that it didn't have substantial cash value), or Ebay (if we thought we could sell it for $20 or more online).

Slowly, we've weeded through a box at a time, mostly in evenings after dinner and on snow days.  We found more than we thought that we could sell, including old phones, crocheted items, maternity and baby items, gifts from students, and some old Mary Kay inventory.  We tried to set a goal of posting 3-5 items a week.  This meant that we weren't overwhelmed with trips to the PO and that it was easy to post items during Raygan's naptime.  It's worked out that we've been able to make our regular weekly trip to the PO and take items to mail then, so it hasn't been any extra fuel cost added to the budget.  We're still fine tuning the shipping costs, but all told, by the end of this month, we're sure we'll have our $500 CSA fee, if not a little more to put into our savings.

It's so nice to know that we've turned our junk into some cash for our food for the summer.  And we love the bonus of having the extra space in Raygan's closet.  (Built in shelving there soon, anyone?!)  Plus, it's great knowing that none of our junk went to the landfill, but it's either getting repurposed in our home or finding a new life in someone else's home.  

Have you had success selling on Ebay or some other site?  What closets have you been cleaning out?  I'd love to hear how you're living and saving green!

Cloth Diapering with Baby

We brought our little Raygan home from the hospital six weeks ago and my how they've flown by! The first few weeks were definitely an adjustment for everyone, but now we're in a groove as a family and loving our little monkey to pieces. So, hopefully, I can find time to get back to blogging on a regular basis during some of his nap times.

We were committed to cloth diapering and going diaper free (sometimes, when it works for us) well before we even found out we were pregnant. The cost and environmental benefits were huge to us, especially knowing that we hoped to have more than one child and that the cloth diapers could be used with the next baby. The health benefits to him are an added bonus.

Most of the cloth diapers we purchased were Charlie Banana ones, mostly because they were available at Target through our registry. We were given two that are velcro closure style, one from my friend who makes them for her (Etsy store. These are easy to leave in the diaper bag for those times when we need to leave him with someone who's not as comfortable with cloth diapering since they're styled more like the disposable kind in terms of closures. We discovered that people were hesitant to buy cloth diapers, I guess because they either weren't sure we were committed to the idea or because they wanted to buy something cute like clothes or books. So we ended up pooling our gift cards and buying them ourselves, which worked just as well. My school faculty also wanted to throw us a diaper shower, so we ended up getting about 12 cloth diapers that way also. We've found that the 30 cloth diapers we currently have is enough to get us through about two days of cloth diapering, allowing for what's in the laundry. Since Raygan is still so little, he's eating frequently, which means frequent diaper changes.

Washing is a cinch with these. We keep a diaper pail beside his changing station, so we just toss the dirty diapers, liners, and cloth wipes we use in there at each change and wash them when the pail is full and we're down to about six clean diapers. We love the design of the Charlie Banana diapers since the pocket is in the front, it means its less messy to get the liner out, and they're really adjustable with the elastic in the legs and the snaps in the front. We wash them on warm with a phosphate free detergent and either line dry them or toss them in the dryer on low heat. Stuffing them is easy; we can do it while we watch an episode of White Collar on Netflix and it takes no time; it's really easy to do with him in the Moby Wrap too.
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All told, we figure we "spent" about $300 with gift cards to get the cloth diapers for him and we had a few given to us as shower gifts. Since we're cloth diapering exclusively now (he was a little small for them at first), we're not having to buy any disposables, which is saving us probably $20 a week right now. Rough estimates from various sources figure we'll save between $1000 and $2000 on diapering costs alone with him, and that doesn't include the cloth wipes we're using instead of disposables (they're flannel ones a friend made and thin washcloths). This savings is huge, since it's helping us cut costs so that Benny can stay home with him when I go back to work in August.

And then there's the environmental benefit of not filling the landfill with all those disposable things. Of course, there are folks who would argue that it's a toss up since we're washing with warm water, which uses more energy, but hopefully our new water saving washer will help to offset that somewhat. And we wait to wash until we've got a full load of diapers, which means we're saving some energy there too. Being able to line dry them in the summer will be great, and it'll help sun bleach out the poop stains. By using cloth diapers, we're also able to cut down on our chemical consumption as a family, since there are far fewer chemicals used in these than in the disposables (all those super absorbent polymers, etc.).

Plus there are health benefits for Raygan to using cloth diapers. Since he can feel it more in cloth diapers when he's wet or dirty, we change him more frequently than we might in disposable diapers. This means there's less diaper rash and less of a risk of yeast infections for him. It also means that potty training will be far easier, because he won't have lost that feeling of what it's like when he "goes", which means hopefully we'll be out of diapers sooner than if he were in disposables. Friends who cloth diaper also report that they've seen fewer accidents with their kids who were in cloth diapers exclusively, probably because they're more aware of the signs of needing to go and so they don't wait until it's urgent. And, we're exposing him to fewer chemicals by cloth diapering, which makes us feel better, since many of these chemicals haven't been researched in terms of long term effects.

So, all in all, we're thrilled with our decision to cloth diaper. Some might say it's more work; we just see it as a different kind of work (more laundry vs. more trips to the dump). We love that it allows us to save some significant money, and it allows us to save a huge amount of landfill space. Do you cloth diaper? Thinking about it? I'd love to hear from you! Here's to living green and saving green bringing up baby.

Simple Greywater Solutions

Throughout the summer, I've been indulging my love of reading, which in my adult life has come to mean more nonfiction works in the form of things by Michael Pollan (such as The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma) and other similar works on simple living (of course these were borrowed or from the library, so my reading habit hasn't eaten up any of our budget this summer). Among the things I've been reading about this summer, greywater (water that has been used for laundry, dishes, etc. and could potentially be reused to irrigate the gardens) has been a topic, one which very much intrigues me.

One day we'd love to install a greywater laundry system, since we already use phosphate free laundry detergent (Charlie's Soap or Seventh Generation) and our homemade lavender laundry booster. However, the current NC building code doesn't make this the simplest thing to do in a residential setting, and our budget for household projects wouldn't accommodate it anyway since we're replacing the roof and covering the front deck with a metal roof. So, in the interim (or perhaps forever, depending on how the code and our budget go), we're implementing some simple greywater solutions.

1. All leftover water and icecubes in drinking glasses at the end of the day go to water indoor or outdoor plants. This means that I don't have to remember to water the houseplants once or twice a week and these small amounts of potable water don't go to waste by simply pouring them down the drain. (It's taken a while to train the family, but they've got the hang of it now.) The icecubes are great because they provide a slow gradual water source over an hour or so. We really try to drink only water in our house, though we sometimes succumb to the "need" for sweet tea or juice in the summer, or hot tea/coffee in the winter or mornings. This makes things easy and we don't have to worry about giving the plants something that might not be healthy for them. (Black coffee or unsweetened tea is fine for plants, especially blueberries which love acidic soils, so we sometimes pour leftovers of these on the blueberry plants--when I remember.)

2. Water from boiling pasta, corn on the cob, seafood, or canning is caught and cooled. Then, I take it outside to water the veggie garden or flower garden. If it's salted water, then I am more selective about where I put it (it might go on the weeds growing in the gravel driveway to kill them, rather than killing my flowers or stressing the veggies).

3. Water from washing dishes by hand is caught in a pot/bowl rather than the sink and poured over outdoor plants. The small amount of soap helps to deter pests and any organic matter (bits of lettuce, pasta, etc.) just decomposes in the soil. We try to use phosphate-free soaps here too, so they don't contaminate the groundwater. (This is key for us, since our water comes from a shared well and not a municipal source.)

All in all, I figure these actions lessen our need for irrigation considerably. I've really tried to subscribe to the xeriscaping philosophy with my flower gardens and only water the veggie garden on a regular basis. The flower gardens are watered with all this greywater I've described above. I can't imagine what else I could grow if we had the laundry greywater system in place!

So, what about you... what're you doing to capture greywater or conserve water on a regular basis? Have you experimented with a greywater system, or is yours just hodge podge like ours? I'd love to hear from you!

Weekend Culinary Adventures

Although the snow has stopped, it's not quite warm enough for me to be doing much in the garden. So, I spent much of this weekend doing some batch cooking for the freezer and meals this week.

Friday night was date night, so instead of pizza, we made a quiche. If you have a lot of eggs, this is a great way to use them, as well as odds and ends of veggies. We added mushrooms, some ends of cheeses, onion, and bacon to ours. Instead of the traditional pastry crust, we opted for the hashbrown crust described in this recipe from Rachel Ray. It was more prep time, but we enjoyed it and it was a little healthier than the traditional buttery crust. With a glass of wine and some Ben and Jerry's for dessert, it was a great date night meal! (And, it made plenty of leftovers for lunches this week.) We made extra hashbrowns and cooked them while the quiche was baking so that we could reheat them for breakfast in the morning. (Doing it this way meant that we cooked once and only had to wash the pan once, rather than putting the leftover shredded potatoes in the fridge to be cooked the next morning. Did ya catch that water and time conservation? :))

Yesterday, I made meatballs to put into the freezer, as well as for meatball subs. The meatball recipe I use is from Cheap. Fast. Good., a cookbook I've mentioned several times before. (Can you tell it's one of my "go-to's"?!) This time, instead of using two pounds of ground beef, I used a pound of beef and a pound of ground chicken. The beef and chicken were on sale at Harris Teeter last week, and the chicken had the bonus of being natural, free-range, vs. the hormone laden stuff. One of the reasons I like this meatball recipe is that you bake them on the broiler pan, rather than frying them, so they're healthier. (Usually, I hate bringing out the broiler pan because it's a pain to clean up... umm, rather, it's a pain for Benny to clean up (that's the deal, he does dishes... I do laundry... it works for us). But, I found out that you can use dryer sheets to release gunk from a pan. So I tried it, and low and behold, it worked like magic! There was virtually no scrubbing, aside from the light wiping to get stuff out of the grooves. So, I"m sold on this method!)

When I was already in the middle of the recipe, I realized that I didn't have any bread crumbs, so I made my own using some week old bread we had in the fridge. I simply buzzed it in the food processor and baked the crumbs for about 20 min. on a baking sheet to dry them out. (I stored the leftovers in an airtight container for later use.) I also found this method in the same cookbook as the meatball recipe.

I also made a large bowl of chicken salad yesterday, using some leftover grapes, an apple, some celery Benny had picked up at Costco, and the chicken I cooked in the crockpot last week. (Don't worry, the chicken had been in the freezer up until yesterday. It hadn't been hanging around in the fridge too long!) I added some salt, pepper, Miracle Whip (Benny's spread of choice), and poppy seeds I had in the fridge (store these and sesame seeds in the fridge and they'll last longer because the oils won't go bad as quickly). We had that on some homemade bread for lunch... yummy!

Today, I tried my hand at making some homemade hamburger and hotdog buns. I don't like paying full price for these at the store, but can hardly ever find the whole wheat ones on sale. I know that baking from scratch is generally cheaper, and definitely better for you, but I've always been a bit intimidated by yeast dough recipes until I met my friend the bread machine. (Actually, ours was gifted to us as a hand-me-down; thanks Maggie!) I found a recipe for the burger and dog buns in the Bread Machine Magic cookbook Benny got for me for Valentine's Day (I'd only checked the book out at the library about 10 times... it's about time I had my own used copy from Amazon!). The beauty of this recipe is that the machine makes the dough, meaning that my "human error" of always killing the yeast in yeast bread recipes was not a factor. (I always manage to get the water too hot, even with a thermometer.) It also meant that I could work on finishing organizing the office while the dough was kneaded and rose the first time. When the machine beeped, I simply turned the wheat dough out onto my floured countertop, rolled it into a log, and separated it into 12 portions. These I rolled into 6-inch long rolls, or formed into balls, which I flattened to get the hamburger or hotdog buns. Then, I let them rise in the warm oven for 40 minutes, and baked for 12 min. at 400 degrees. (I know it sounds like a lot of steps, but it was really a nice, relaxing way to spend the afternoon. And I could get my other stuff done, like laundry, helping Benny with the closet organizer install (more on that soon) and cleaning.) This was the end result... wheat hotdog and hamburger buns, bakery quality, with no preservatives. They were fantastic with our meatball sandwiches tonight! We're both swearing that we'll never pay for storebought burger or dog buns again... the taste and texture were worth all the "work"!

How about you? Did you have any fantastic culinary adventures this weekend? How do you work meals in around the edges, so that yous till have time to do what you want and need to do? Please share... I'd love to hear from you!

Sharin' the green love and savings!

Frugal Thoughts

Thanks to everyone for putting my blog over the 100 visitors mark! :) What an accomplishment for about a month of being online!

A few random frugal thoughts for the day, including some conservation tips:

1. Use less water by using foaming hand soap (remember to make your own). Since it's about 75% water, you can get some soap, lather, and then rinse, saving the water you'd need to get the initial lather with traditional soaps.

2. Set a kitchen timer or alarm clock to keep your showers short. If you're in the habit of taking long showers, start with baby steps by decreasing your time by a minute each week. If you use a 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner, you'll save time also. (They also make timers that you can install in your shower, but I just can't see going there if I have a kitchen timer that will do the job.) You might also try cutting the water off while you lather up (I can only stand to do this in the summer... it's a little too chilly in the winter.)

3. Use rechargable batteries as much as possible to keep the standard ones out of the landfill. Many cities are now implementing recycling efforts for household batteries, so check our your local waste management center to see if they're doing so. (Sometimes you have to take them to the central collection site, not a convenience center, so we just stockpile ours and take them once or twice a year. I've started collecting spent ones at school to save them from going into the landfill.)

4. Switch to LED outdoor string lights or solar path lights, so that you're using less energy. Many places will exchange standard incandescent Christmas lights around the holidays for a discount on LED sets. (Home Depot did this last year.)

5. If you're planting a garden this spring or summer, tap into friends who are splitting perennials for flowers. For veggies, check out the local 4-H club or FFA clubs at the high schools. Usually they offer plants at a decent cost, and it's nice to know that what you're paying for them will go to support the efforts of these youth in future years. I got an email today (thanks Jamie!) with dates that our FFA will be selling plants and what they've started from seed this year so I know what to expect when I get there. If you find you check it out this year and find you like working with these groups, ask if they have an email contact list so that you can receive updates about their future events.

6. When looking for coupons, don't be afraid to send an email or letter requesting some from a favorite company and thanking them for providing a product you like. This post at Frugal Coupon Living has a great list of various companies who will respond to email or written requests (scroll about halfway down the page). There's a nice list of organic and natural companies there, too.

That's all for today... what about you? Do you have any fabulous frugal thoughts? I'd love to hear from you!

Sharin' the green love and savings!