I hope you all had a great weekend!  Our was spent working on the rough wiring in our basement, with a lot of help from my parents.  I have a circuit map that I’ve been drawing onto a blank floor plan, adding x’s and o’s for all the outlets and lights.  The whole basement map is now covered in x’s and o’s, which is pretty awesome to see.  We still have to run the wires to the lights, but all of the outlets and switches are wired.  We’ll probably be able to finish our rough wiring next weekend, which means we’re getting very close to being able to call for our next inspection.  Moving right along on that basement!

We’re also making good progress on the garden.  We decided to cover some of our raised garden beds with black plastic this year in an effort to fight weeds before they start.  Last fall we were wandering around in a tomato field grown by a huge organic farm in our area.  We noticed that all of the rows were raised and covered in black plastic, with just a small hole for each tomato plant.  We figured if it’s working for the largest organic farm in the state (and they’ve been an organic farm since the 70s, so they’ve had a few years of practice), it will probably work for us.  So we went to the farm supply store a few weeks ago and bought a roll of black plastic for $15.  We’re covering five of our ten raised beds (the other five all have seeds planted in them already – we’re using the black plastic on beds where we’re going to plant seedlings that we’ve grown in the house this spring).  So far, we’ve covered three of the beds, and the other two will be getting covered today.  I cut holes in one of the beds and planted seedlings a few days ago.  It’s a lot more time consuming to plant seedlings that way, but I’m reminding myself of how awesome it will be in July when I’m spending my time doing anything else but weeding!  Have any of you tried black plastic as weed prevention in your garden?  Please let me know how it’s worked for you.

I found a few good articles recently that I wanted to share with you.  Hope you like them too!

From Mr Money Mustache, Food Rules – A Shortcut To Better Health.  I agree with the whole thing, so I’ll just let you go check it out and read what he has to say.  Eat real food!

15 Wonderful Ways To Use Coconut.  I love this.  We’re going to walk over to the grocery store today to get some Dixie cups so that we can make popsicles out of frozen berries and coconut milk.  I am a big fan of coconut.  I have a gallon bucket of coconut oil that I got when Nutiva was running a great sale.  I use coconut oil as a moisturizer and it’s also my favorite cooking oil.  I buy organic shredded coconut quite frequently and add it to all sorts of stuff.  My current favorite thing to add it to is frosty granola bars - we love these things!  I’ve been making them for the last several weeks, every time I have a few very ripe bananas.  They take five minutes, and are great to have in the freezer for a quick snack or dessert.  I’ve tweaked them a bit:  I add protein powder, use chopped nuts instead of cereal, and omit the maple syrup.  I sometimes use Justin’s chocolate almond butter instead of plain almond butter.  I always add coconut.  And lately, I’ve been adding a teaspoon of coffee extract and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Also, I’ve found that you don’t need to use muffin papers.  Just drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a plate and stick the plate in the freezer for half an hour.  Then pop the almost-frozen treats off the plate, dump them into a bag or other freezer storage container, and put them back in the freezer so that you can grab one whenever you need it.  Quick, easy, delicious!

Minimalist Mom has a great post about Pinterest, Facebook and how comparing ourselves with others isn’t a recipe for happiness.  I love the last part where she writes about how you might not be the parent who bakes three dozen fancy cupcakes for your kid’s birthday… you might instead be the parent who leads a bunch of four-year-olds in the Hokie Pokie.  We recently had a birthday party for our four-year-old.  It was at a park with a great playground.  I made several of his favorite snacks (which everyone loved – proof that birthday party food doesn’t have to mean junk food and tons of sugar) and the kids had a blast.  They played on the playground and in the sand, and everyone stayed well past lunchtime.  We didn’t do goody bags or organize any activities (put a bunch of kids in a park and they will come up with their own activities – I promise!).  I spent maybe an hour the night before, making snacks.  Easy, stress-free, and tons of fun.  The next day, our son asked me if we could have his birthday party exactly like that, every single year.

Hearth And Soul Blog Hop recipe round-up over at Penniless Parenting is a great resource.  The edition I’ve linked to has almost a hundred recipes in it – all made of simple, whole food ingredients.

This one is from last year, but in case you missed it the first time around, it’s a great post from Simple Mom about how awesome it is to be debt-free.  A little inspiration for all of us who are somewhere on the road to being debt-free.  For us, the only debt left is our mortgage, but we’re making steady progress on that.

Have a great week!

Remember a few months ago when I wrote about the brilliant idea of freezer-to-crockpot cooking that I discovered thanks to Stephanie at Mama And Baby Love?  It’s become a mainstay in my kitchen, and I can’t imagine not having bags of crockpot-ready food in the freezer.  Every few weeks I prep several bags of our favorite lentil soup and Stephanie’s BBQ veggies (you can add chicken or not – it works either way).  Then I can pull them out of the freezer and dump them into the crock pot on days when I know I’m going to be extra busy.  It’s especially great on days when I’m running errands and not home during the day – I love walking in to a house that smells like a yummy dinner, and I especially love that all I have to do in the morning – when I’m busy getting ready for the day ahead – is dump a bag into the crock pot and  add some water if it’s a soup.  Hard to beat that.

Anyway, Stephanie has created a cookbook of 20 of those genius freezer-to-crockpot meals!  She’s got vegetarian meals and meals that include meat, although I’ve found that some of the meat-based meals work well if I leave out the meat and then add chopped tempeh or Field Roast sausages near the end of the cooking time.  As an aside, I’ve also been adding some meat back into my own diet.  My husband and sons have always eaten meat, but I had stopped eating it for a few years.  It’s still pretty scarce around here, but I do eat it sometimes.  I love that Stephanie’s meals are a great way to include a little meat in a meal that is mostly vegetable-based (I tend to go heavier on the veggies and lighter on the meat when I make any meat-and-vegetable recipe).

Stephanie’s Slow Cooker Freezer Recipes includes shopping lists, nutritional info, and cute little labels that you can print out to stick on your freezer bags.  And the whole thing is only $5.99!  I love having these freezer-to-crockpot meals on hand for my own family, and they’re also a great way to take food to someone else, like a family that has just had a baby or is dealing with an illness.  The recipient doesn’t have to worry about keeping track of a casserole dish and getting it back to you, and if you squish the contents out a bit in your bag and lay it flat to freeze, it will make a nice flat brick that will be easy to fit into anyone’s freezer.

I’ve been making our favorite lentil soup and a couple of Stephanie’s previously-available recipes for several months now, and I’m definitely a big believer in the benefits of freezer-to-crockpot cooking.  So I’m especially thrilled to have Stephanie’s new e-book in hand (which she graciously sent to me so that I could check it out) so that I can add some new meals to our freezer stash.  I love how simple everything is.  No-frills cooking at it’s best.  There are no exotic or hard-to-find ingredients.  Stephanie reminds me of myself when it comes to her approach to food:  it should be nutritious, with no mystery ingredients.  She explains how she goes about prepping the meals and answers some FAQs at the beginning of the book (yes, she freezes potatoes raw and they turn out just fine).  This cookbook isn’t the one you’d turn to if you’re making Thanksgiving dinner for a group of foodies.  But for everyday meals – when you’re busy, tired, and stretched in several directions at once – they are perfect.

If your current fallback plan is pizza delivery on busy days, think how much money your could save – how much better your diet will be – if you spend a few hours a month chopping ingredients and stashing bags in your freezer.  Batch cooking lots of meals at one time and freezing them is a popular time saver in the kitchen.  But prepping for the slow cooker is even easier, since you don’t have to cook anything on your prep day – you just chop the ingredients and put them in the freezer bags.  I hope you enjoy Stephanie’s recipes as much as we do!

We bought a new – to us – car.  Actually, we bought it a year ago, but we now have the title in hand, so it’s truly ours now.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I was a fan of my Honda Civic.  But at 20 years old and with 225,000 miles on it, and with our second baby on the way, we had decided it might be time to replace it.  So last year, just before our second son was born, we bought a 2009 Mazda5.  We had been shopping on Craigslist for about six months prior to making the purchase.  We had our “car account” at ING that we had been funding for over a year, and we had about $5000 in it at the time that we decided to replace our car.  We had additional savings that were not earmarked for a car, and we debated whether or not to dig into that account to pay for a new vehicle.

I wrote out a pros and cons sheet.  I like doing things like that.

I talked to our credit union to find out what sort of interest rate we’d get on a loan.  Then I calculated the total interest we’d pay over the life of the loan, and the total interest we’d pay if we paid off the loan in one year instead of three.  (I just used a mortgage calculator that lets you see how extra payments impact the life of the loan).

We had initially been looking at vehicles that cost $5000 or less, in order to just use the money in our car fund and be done with it.  But the more we talked about it, the more we decided maybe we wanted something a bit newer that was still under warranty.  We wanted something with room for our kids and dog and whatever gear we needed to haul, but we also wanted something that was good on gas.  The Mazda5 jumped out at us as the perfect compromise between a car and a minivan.  Sliding doors (awesome), seating for six, and lots of cargo space in the back if you’re only using the middle row of seats.  Plus, I’ve averaged over 30 mpg (city/highway combined) every single time I’ve filled the tank in the year that we’ve had the car (I focus on gas mileage when I drive, so my numbers are always better than what a car is rated for.  I go about 68 on the interstate, and in town I avoid hard braking and try to plan ahead to allow myself to coast up to lights as much as possible, etc. )

Anyway, we paid $14,000 for our car.  It was two years old and had about 40,000 miles on it.  It’s under warranty until 60,000 miles.  We’ve put 7,000 miles on it in the past 14 months, so we should have another two years of warranty coverage at this rate (That’s all of our driving – we still have my husband’s 22-year-old car, but we’ve probably put less than 200 miles on it in the past year.  We could get rid of it, but it’s a cheap backup vehicle that costs very little to register and insure).

So back to paying for the car.  After much research and discussion, we decided to finance $10,000 of the purchase price.  We took $4000 from our car account for a down payment.  We saved the other thousand in that account to use for registration, insurance – which we upgraded to full coverage for the first time ever – and to have just in case other miscellaneous expenses came up.  Then we financed the other $10,000 through our credit union at 4.5% interest (better than the dealership could offer us on a used vehicle).

Our plan was to pay off the loan in 12 months.  It ended up taking us 14 months, although the last couple payments were quite small, and the interest charge the final month was about two dollars.  Over the course of the loan, we paid $227 in interest.  Back when we were considering financing the vehicle, I had calculated roughly $215 in interest charges if we paid off the loan in a year, so it came pretty close to our expectations.

Once we had decided that we wanted to buy a newer vehicle that cost more than what we had in our car account, we figured we had three options.  One was to keep funding the car account and wait until we had the money to pay the whole price outright.  Two was to raid our other savings account and pay for the car outright, which would have cleaned out most of the account.  It’s much more robust these days since we’ve changed our mortgage payoff strategy, but that wasn’t the case a year ago.  The third option was to finance part of the purchase and pay off the loan as quickly as possible.  Once we calculated that it would cost us just north of $200 to finance the money for a year, we decided that was worth it to us.  It allowed us to have a newer, more reliable, safer vehicle before our baby arrived, and the additional interest wasn’t a budget-busting amount.

Once the loan balance got down to the last couple thousand dollars, the total monthly interest charges were very low.  So the last few months, we prioritized our municipal bond fund over the car loan – which is why it took a couple extra months to pay off the balance.  But it’s paid off now, and we have the title in hand.  That feels good.  And the $227?  Totally worth it.  I gotta say, after eight years of driving my old Honda, the Mazda might as well be a Mercedes as far as I’m concerned.  I know that it’s safer for our family, and I like that too.  We’re able to fit two additional people in our car now too, which has been nice when we’ve had out-of-town visitors (like my in-laws) who arrived by plane.  And all winter long, every time I went to town for groceries, I brought home 15 2x4s in our Mazda.  They fit just perfectly down the middle between the seats.  I probably brought home 200 2x4s that way, and my husband was able to finish framing our basement a few months ago.  The car has been a good little work-horse.

Anyway, now we’re back to having only a mortgage on the debt side of the account balance.  I definitely like it better that way.  But I’m glad we got our car when we did, and I consider the interest payments well worth the benefit we’ve had from having the car over the past year.  I had always been opposed to the idea of financing any depreciating asset, but when I wrote out my pros/cons sheet on this one, I was convinced that this was the way to go.  Of course a big part of the strategy was to pay off the loan as quickly as possible, especially in the early months when the outstanding balance was highest (the first month, our interest payment was around $35).

We plan to keep this car for a very long time.  Given the fact that we had our 20-year-old Honda until it hit 225,000 miles, and how little we drive, I’d say we’ll still have the Mazda when our boys get to high school.  The Honda had 182,000 miles on it when we bought it, and we kept it for eight years.  Given that our Mazda was practically brand new (40,000 miles – I had never had a car with only five digits on the odometer!), I think it will serve us well for many years.

Have you ever financed a car?  Would you in the future?  If you had asked me that two years ago, I’d have said no on both counts.  But this ended up working out very well for us.  I doubt we’ll ever finance another car, given that we’re still contributing automatically to our car savings account and  are probably many years out from needing to buy a car again.  But this experience did make me consider loans in a slightly different light.  Rather than my usual “all debt is bad and I’m allergic to interest payments” attitude, our car-buying process made me think of the interest payments as the price we paid for having our car a year earlier than we would have if we had waited until we could pay for it outright.  To us, it was worth it.

Over the last couple years, I’ve participated in getting the word out about Only72 sales (they last for 72 hours – hence the name) run by Adam Baker and Karol Gadja.  There have been a few other similar sales in that time (like the one about simplifying your family life earlier this month), but Baker and Karol tend to focus on subjects like building your own business (specifically something online), publishing, freelancing, technology, blogging, and increasing income.  Twice per year, they gather a whole bunch of resources from well-known and respected bloggers, authors, business owners, etc., and offer them in a package deal for 90% off retail.

In order to be included in the sale, the books, courses and resources have to actually sell at their retail price when the sale isn’t going on – no price inflation to make the sale seem like more of a deal than it actually is.  In the past, all of the resources sold with the Only72 sales were digital.  But this time around, they’re including a physical copy of Chris Guillebeau’s new book, The $100 Startup.  They’ll ship the book anywhere in the world, and it’s included in the $100 price tag for this sale (no additional shipping charges).  The current sale is on now, and lasts until Thursday morning.

All told, this sale includes $1000 worth of information on how to start or enhance an online business – everything from successful blogging to freelancing to ethical (and successful) sales practices.  They’ve got resources on improving ad income, structuring your small business systems, getting paid to create art, and turning your passion into your career.

If you’re interested in working for yourself in an online business, this resource package will be an excellent start.  Of course, it will only help if you devote the time required to study the contents and implement the ideas…. if you put it on your Discover and then just daydream about starting a business, you’ll just be $100 poorer.

I’ve blogged many times about how thankful I am that my husband and I started our own business ten years ago, and then took it online as soon as realistically possible (around 2003).  Working online has given us more flexibility than we ever could have dreamed of.  Right now, it’s 11 am on a Monday and my husband is at the park with our boys – he just decided to take a break from work for an hour and walk to the park with them.  Our business keeps us very busy, but it also allows us a flexibility that would never happen if we were working for someone else.

The one downside to how we started our business was the start-up expenses combined with the fact that we had very little income for the first year or two.  Although we learned a lot as we went along (and this was a decade ago, before a lot of the current online resources were available), we spent quite a bit of money getting our business up and running.  We paid for pay-per-click advertising and other marketing opportunities before we learned about SEO and how to make it work for our business.  I would say that the main benefit to the resources offered in the Only72 package is that they show you how to create and/or grow an online business without spending a ton of money in the process.  The physical book you’ll get (along with all of the digital books and courses) sums it up:  The $100 Startup.  People like to say “you have to spend money to make money” and in some industries, that’s true.  But the internet has changed a lot of aspects of business, and there are avenues to making an income online without getting yourself in over your head in debt right out of the gates.  The Only72 packages are designed to show you how.

Anyway, if you’ve been looking for something new career wise, or if you’re between jobs, or if you want the flexibility of working for yourself from anywhere you choose, the latest Only72 package might be just what you need.  If you’re perfectly happy with your current job and income, I’ll be back soon with more regular posts

In the spirit of self-employment and income generation, here are a couple of links that might be helpful – and they’re free!  In case you missed it the first time around, a reader asked me last fall for ideas on how a stay-at-home parent could earn an extra $500 a month to contribute to the family income.  Here’s my reply, and be sure to check out the comments, as other readers added more ideas.  And I also want to share with you an excellent article by Tiffany Washko (one of my all time favorite bloggers) on how to make a good living as a blogger.  If you’re interested in earning money from a blog, Tiffany has a ton of great tips – and she’s living proof that it can turn into a lucrative career.

A few days ago, I got an email from a reader named Kate who shared how her attitude towards money has changed over the years.  She mentioned that in the past, she would have spent a lot more money than she does now, simply because she would have considered so many more things to be needs rather than wants.  When we compare ourselves with the people around us or let ourselves be swept along with current trends, money has a way of disappearing rather quickly.  Here’s what Kate had to say:

I think you could do a whole post on saying NO. This past week and a half I have said no to :

1. Over priced CSA. (cheaper to go to farmers market and get produce) $400

2. Travel soccer for two daughters $400. 

3. Summer camps $500. 

4. Preschool $3000

5. Camping weekend $200

6. Gas on all the above activities has to be over $600

The old me would not have even realized that I was making choices on these things. $5000 and i would not have batted a eye 2 years ago. I considered them a must have because my friends were doing them. It was REALLY hard to walk away from preschool and travel soccer. Yet, I can’t afford them. I think we confuse paying for things with being able to afford them. Yes, I can pay for the $270 a month for preschool. (Plus then I am also spending money for fundraiser, class parties, gas, teachers gifts, etc.) But I can’t afford to pay for them and meet my financial goals or my goals to create a peaceful environment.

I love what she says about confusing our ability to pay for something with really being able to truly afford it.  Think about houses and cars that are usually purchased with a payment plan.  The most important number is the total price – including interest – that you’ll pay for the item.  Thinking in terms of whether you can make the monthly payment is a recipe for being in debt forever and for spending all or nearly all of what you earn each month.  Kate notes she does technically have the money to pay for those items.  But I love her thought process when she says that she can’t afford to pay for them AND meet her financial goals or her goals to create a peaceful environment.  

A peaceful environment is a huge part of health and happiness.  And living below our means – often by saying “no” to lots of things that people sometimes assume are necessities – is a very good step towards creating a peaceful environment.  Knowing that you have money in the bank to get you through a tough patch (because tough patches will come up – it’s just a matter of when) is a very calming feeling.  Knowing that you don’t really need that much money each month to cover your expenses creates a sense of peace.

In order to determine if we can really afford something (as opposed to whether we’re simply able to pay for it), we have to look at our priorities first.  What are your most important financial goals?  For us, paying off our mortgage and having a solid emergency fund are far more important than any other wants we have.  So those come first each month, before any other spending.  If we were to just look at our total income and then spend it on whatever we wanted during the month, there might not be enough left to meet our most important goals.  Everybody has different “most important goals” but the key is to make sure that you’re spending your money in harmony with those goals rather than at odds with them.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Kate!

Every once in a while, numerous authors band together to offer a large collection of e-books at a steeply discounted price.  Today marks the start of an awesome new e-book sale put together by Corey from Simple Marriage and Mandy from Life Your Way.  It’s a collection of 38 e-books covering all sorts of family-related topics (food, cooking, homemaking, marriage, minimalism for families, simple living, parenting, entrepreneurship, etc.).  Purchased separately, the books would cost $375.  But this week only – now through 8am eastern time on Friday April 20th – the whole collection is only $29.

Lots of great reading material, no paper clutter (e-books are awesome like that!).  Plenty of motivation, ideas and inspiration to help you simplify your life, focus on what’s important, and enjoy the family life you’re creating.  Several of these e-books are written by some of my favorite bloggers, and I’m excited to dig into them.  You guys know that marriage, family, and simplicity are all high on my list of important things.  I know that’s the case for a lot of you too, and I think quite a few of my readers will love this e-book collection.  The price is lower than the Simplify Your Family Life sale last year (it was $47 in 2011), and almost all of the e-books this year are different (33 new ones, in case you purchased the collection from last year and are wondering about duplicates).

Here’s a link to the sale and here are the details on what you get for your $29:

Parenting & Kids

4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Your Parenting Questions by the Moms at 4 Moms, 35+ Kids ( retail price $7.99)

Flourishing Spring by Michele from Frugal Granola (retail price $5.95)

Mindset for Moms by Jamie at Steady Mom (retail price $4.99)

Nurturing Creativity by Renee from FIMBY (retail price $3.00)

Parenting with Positive Guidance by Amanda from Not Just Cute (retail price $9.00)

Truth in the Tinsel by Amanda from Impress Your Kids (retail price $6.99)

Minimalism for Families

101 Ways to Simplify Your Life by Laura at Journey to a Simple Life (retail price $9.95)

321-Stop by Lori at Loving Simple Living (retail price $9.97)

Inside Out Simplicity by Joshua from Becoming Minimalist (retail price $11.99)

Simple Ways to Be More with Less by Courtney from Be More with Less (retail price $9.97)

The Minimalist Mom’s Guide to Baby’s First Year by Rachel at The Minimalist Mom(retail price $9.95) I even have a short guest chapter in this one!

Food & Cooking

Get Lean Recipe for Success by Nisha at Healthy Mom’s Kitchen (retail price $37.00)

Got Dinner? by Susan from The Confident Mom (retail price $4.00)

How To Cook For Yourself: A Complete Beginner’s Guide by Rachael at Kitchen Courses (retail price $35.00)

Plan It, Don’t Panic by Stephanie from Keeper of the Home (retail price $4.99)

Real Food Basics by Kate at Modern Alternative Mama (retail price $6.95)

Real Food, Real Easy by Erin from The Humbled Homemaker (retail price $9.95)

Smart Sweets by Katie at Kitchen Stewardship (retail price $9.95)

The Everything Beans Book by Katie at Kitchen Stewardship (retail price $9.95)

Homemaking

2012 Confident Mom Weekly Household Planner by Susan at The Confident Mom(retail price $9.00)

Clean Start: Your Guide to Natural Home Cleaning by Michelle from Open Eye Health(retail price $4.95)

Complete Printables Download Pack by Mandi from Life Your Way (retail price $7.00)

Food on Your Face for Acne & Oily Skin by Leslie at Crunchy Betty (retail price $7.99)

From Debtor to Better by Barry from Debtor to Better (retail price $15.00)

My Buttered Life {Summer + Gift Giving Editions} by Renee from MadeOn Hard Lotion(retail price $10.00)

Not a DIY Diva by Melissa from The Inspired Room (retail price $3.99)

One Bite at a Time by Tsh at Simple Mom (retail price $5.00)

That Works for Me by Kristen at We Are THAT Family (retail price $8.00)

Marriage & Relationships

A Simple Marriage by Corey at Simple Marriage (retail price $4.99)

Buck Naked Marriage by Corey at Simple Marriage (retail price $2.99)

Entangled by Amy from Permission to Peruse (retail price $4.99)

The A to Z Guide: 26 Ways in 26 Days to a Happier, Healthier Marriage by The Dating Divas (retail price $9.97)

Entrepreneurship & Blogging

Blogger Behave by Laura at 10 Million Miles (retail price $4.99)

How to Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too by Mandi from Life Your Way (retail price $12.00)

Make Money Blogging by Tara at Feels Like Home (retail price $4.99)

Tap Into Your Unique Creativity and Self Expression Webinar by Lisa @ WellGrounded Life (retail price $39.00)

Tell Your Time by Amy at Blogging with Amy (retail price $4.99)

Your Blogging Business: Tax Talk & Tips from a Bookkeeper Turned Blogger by Nikki @ Christian Mommy Blogger (retail price $4.99)

The Simplify Your Family Life Sale is brought to you in part by Plan to Eat, and online meal planner that helps to simplify eating at home.  When you purchase the e-book collection, you’ll get a coupon code for a one year Plan to Eat membership!

I hope you love this collection of e-books! Pick up yours sometime between now and Friday – sale ends at 8am eastern time on Friday.

I’ve been focusing more on our grocery bill this year than I usually do.  It’s the only area where we’re not particularly frugal.  And for the most part, I’m fine with that.  Food is one of the reasons we’re frugal in so many other areas.  By shopping at Goodwill for most of what we buy, we can afford to spend more money on food.  And while our grocery bill is on the high end of the spectrum, our dining out bill is zero.  It’s also nice to know that we’re eating high quality food, organic and local when possible, no junk food, no processed food, no mysterious chemical additives, food colorings, empty calories, preservatives or flavor enhancers.  We’re not changing any of that, so our grocery bill isn’t going to drop to $200 a month.  But I knew that we could apply some of our frugal habits to our food bill and free up more money to put towards our mortgage payoff account.

I’ve started being more conscious of sales and stocking up on items that are a great deal.  When Vitacost was selling organic coconut milk for $1.69 a can, I added six cans to my first two orders (they had a limit of six cans per order at the sale price).  I now have a good little stash of coconut milk in the pantry.  I use four or five cans per month, so my current supply will last a few months.  My goal now is find another good sale and stock up again before my current supply runs out.

When one of the grocery stores in town recently ran a BOGO sale on vitamins, I stocked up on the supplements that we use and we shouldn’t need to buy any more for the rest of the year.  I’ve also used the “at cost specials” on The Raw Food World to stock up on things like kelp noodles and the greens powder that I add to my protein drinks – buying them for far less than they normally cost on sites like Amazon or at the local health food store.  When Nutiva ran a crazy deal on coconut oil (my go-to oil for cooking) several weeks ago, I bought a gallon bucket of it.  I’ve been using that to refill the little jar I keep in the kitchen cupboard.  We do the same thing with nutritional yeast (six pound bucket in the pantry), hot sauce (my husband loves that stuff, and he now has two gallon jugs of hot sauce that he can use to refill his little bottles instead of buying new bottles every time he runs out), chia seeds, hemp seeds, lentils, beans, etc.  I never buy canned beans because it’s so easy to cook dried beans in the sun oven or the crock pot.  I usually cook a whole bunch at once and then freeze most of them in mason jars to be used whenever I need them.

Our other favorite food trick is Costco.  We now live 45 minutes from the nearest Costco, so we don’t go very often anymore.  We went last month for the first time since September.  Since we knew it would likely be several months before we made it back again, we made the most of the trip.  We filled two carts – one was entirely full of organic frozen veggies and fruit (berries and cherries) and the other was full of all sorts of other stuff.  Our total bill was almost a thousand dollars, but our pantry and stand-alone freezer are now filled to the brim and we’re set for a good long while.  Especially since garden season is just around the corner.  For the last few weeks, I’ve been harvesting dandelion greens from the backyard for green smoothies – I love free greens!

Given all the stocking up we had been doing lately, I decided to set a goal of spending no more than $350 this month on groceries (our normal grocery spending is around $800 – $1000 a month).  I figured that with all the bulk supplies we have on hand, we could make this work without deviating from our organic, whole food diet.

In order to track our progress, I’m writing any grocery spending on the calendar that hangs on the wall in our kitchen.  Rather than an out-of-sight, out-of-mind place on my computer, the calendar is there every time we walk into the kitchen.  Each time we’ve bought any food this month, I’ve written the rounded dollar amount on that calendar day and put a circle around it.  So far, we’re at $180.  I just went shopping a couple days ago, so that total should stay the same for the next week or so.  That means we’re on track to be under $350 for the month, which feels good.

I think that the stockpile we currently have is enough to significantly reduce our food spending for at least the next couple of months.  And by June/July we should be starting to harvest produce from our garden.  So my goal is to stay below $450/month on grocery spending from now until October, which is the end of garden season around here.

That means my calendar tracking is going to continue for a while.  I like the constant visual reminder of how much we’ve spent.  And knowing that I’m going to have to write my spending down on the calendar where I’ll have to look at it for the rest of the month is a good reminder to skip the high-priced specialty items at the grocery store.

Obviously we had to spend a bit more up front to get our pantry to its current well-stocked state.  In January and February our grocery bill still hovered around $1000/month, even though I was focusing on bringing it down (I was also focusing on stocking up on stuff that was on sale, so the extra purchases cancelled out the savings).  And in March it was more like $1500 since we had the gigantic Costco trip.  Since we only go there two or three times a year now, we try to buy as much as we can fit in the car.  I paid $50 for the gallon of coconut oil (it also came with a free container of hemp protein and a free jar of coconut butter which sweetened the deal even more).  But considering that a 13 ounce jar of it is normally about $8, it definitely pays off in the long run.  All of the bulk supplies we bought lately were purchased when they were on a very good sale.  Not only does it make it more convenient when we run out of something and just have to “go shopping” in our pantry, it’s also a lot less expensive than buying everything in small quantities at whatever price it is when we run out of it.

I’ll keep you updated on our progress as the summer goes by.  So far, so good for April.

When my husband and I got our first apartment together in 2001, we combined two very small “sets” of mis-matched dishes.  We used those for several years until one of my friends upgraded her dishes and offered me her old ones.  They were well-used discount store dishes, but we liked them better than our hodge podge collection of dinnerware, and they all matched!  We donated our old dishes to the thrift store and stared using the new ones right away.  They served us well for several years.

But we recently upgraded to a much nicer set of dishes.  My mother gave us a full set of Pfaltzgraff dinnerware that she had collected over the last few years.  She found all the pieces at thrift stores for a tiny fraction of what they would cost to buy them new, and they’re all in excellent condition.  It’s a pattern I love, and the pieces were obviously much better quality than the dishes we had been using.  We’ve had them for a couple months now, and we love them.

There was no way that I was going to stash them away somewhere and only bring them out when company came over.  Every day is a special day – might as well use the nice china everyday, right?  So that meant that the old china in our cupboards had to go in order to make room for the new dishes.  Normally, I would just donate stuff like that to the thrift store, but our collection had acquired quite a few chips over the years and I wasn’t sure Goodwill would accept them.  I’ve never seen chipped china for sale there, and I thought that it might just end up being more work for them if they had to toss it anyway.  Plus, I was hoping that someone could actually use it.  Although there were several chips, the dishes were still very usable – we had been using them up until we got the Pfaltzgraff set.

I packed the dishes into a couple boxes, and yesterday I posted them for free on Craigslist to see if anyone was interested.  I mentioned the chips and included a couple pictures in the listing.  Very soon after I posted them, I got a reply from a lady who said she’d love to have them.  I put them on our porch for her and told her she could come and get them whenever it was convenient.

This morning I got an email from her saying that she had picked up the dishes.  It said “thank you from the bottom of my heart” and how much it helped them to have the dishes.

I always try to avoid throwing stuff away if I think that there’s any possibility that someone else could use it.  I donate a lot of stuff to Goodwill, but I’m aware that they end up throwing away stuff that isn’t in good shape.  When I have things that aren’t good enough to donate to a thrift store, I always try listing them for free on Craigslist.  I almost always find someone who can use whatever it is that we don’t need anymore.  Baby stuff that has seen better days, boxes we used to pack our stuff when we moved, a broken lawn mower… all sorts of stuff that might normally end up in a landfill was happily carted home by people who had a use for it.

I feel like this is a better solution for things that aren’t in great shape than just dropping them off at a thrift store.  Sure, that method is faster and easier, but it also creates more work for the sorters at the thrift store who have to separate out the stuff that they can’t sell.  If it just ends up getting thrown away, it’s no better than throwing it away yourself.  Listing that sort of stuff for free on Craigslist allows people who actually have a use for it to come and get it, and doesn’t burden thrift stores with goods that they aren’t able to sell.  Plus, it gets it out of your garage or basement.  Win, win, win.

We’ve also benefited several times from other people listing stuff for free on Craigslist.  A few days ago we scored a baby wading pool for free.  Our boys are loving it, and it’s no longer taking up space in someone else’s garage.  It was no use to them anymore, but it’s perfect for our family.  So glad they didn’t just throw it away!

Before you throw stuff away, do you consider whether it might be useful to someone else and offer it on sites like Freecycle or Craigslist?  Obviously, some things are truly trash and nobody is going to want them (if you don’t get any replies to your free listing, that’s a pretty good sign that it does belong in the trash).  But you might be surprised at how often your trash is someone else’s treasure.

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