sage | green frugal parenting

a quandry

meagan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:26:11 +0000

I can’t decide if I want to see Food, Inc., or if it will just send me totally off the grid.

have you tried swagbucks?

meagan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:55:11 +0000

I thought Swagbucks was one of those things I would always stay away from on the internet, but when I saw how quickly points could add up to Amazon giftcards, I decided to give it a try. Now, from “Deal”icious Mom, I’ve learned:

Also, just recently they added EuphoriaBaby.com. Eupohoria Baby is an online baby and maternity store based out of South Carolina that sells toys, towels, organic clothing, and cloth diapers among other things. The great news and the reason I am mentioning this site is because you can cash in only 10 Swagbucks for a $5 gift card to EuphoriaBaby.com! That’s a huge steal!

I maximize my swagbucks by always searching through them first, even when I’m pretty sure Google will give me a better result. Yes, it eats up 10 seconds of my day, but it’s worth it. So worth it, I might just cash in my next 60 points at EuphoriaBaby for one of these, since my 4 year old still dotes on his dolls he got at Hanukkah…

we call it BROKEWATCH

meagan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:39:31 +0000

Our nickname for taking control of our finances is BROKEWATCH. We describe things when we’re chatting online during the day as VBWC (”very BROKEWATCH compatible”) or deny each other purchases citing, “Sorry, not during BROKEWATCH.” I’ve been reading a finance guru because I lack even the most basic sense of household money management and we rotate referring to him as Dave Barry, Jeff Ramsey, or even Gordon Ramsey when it comes up in conversation.

I find that a little humor about it definitely helps, especially when we’re working really hard at it. For example, this weekend. We were out of town in Atlanta, our first jaunt without kids since, well, since we’ve had kids. We had free airfare from winning a raffle and a free hotel room from DH’s accumlated points since he used to be a frequent business traveler. We had relatively inexpensive tickets to see the world’s finest baseball team. We opted against a rental car for public transportation and set ourselves a strict food budget limited to our cash on hand and a starbucks gift card we got via coinstar.

And you know what? It was kind of fun. I liked the sense of challenge it gave us. We were more creative, for sure, and everything tasted that much sweeter.

resolution: no more store-bought greeting cards

meagan — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:13:11 +0000

My famiy has a Hallmark habit. A bad one. You haven’t shown that you care if you haven’t selected exactly the right mass-consumer paper greeting. Because of the number of grandmas in our life (5), I spent $26 on cards in May, and then another $10 just for my dad for Father’s Day. Add in postage and we spent over $40 in the past two months on something that doesn’t mesh with our budgeting or environmental values. I say no more! I have a bulging pile of kids’ artwork on top of our microwave, and fine printables like these from hotcakes:

I just can’t pay into the “Your Greetings Must Come from Wallgreens” cabal anymore, you know?

be careful what you ask for, new organic market…

meagan — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:08:21 +0000

A lovely new organic market opened across from the public market in our city. As a promotion, I got a postcard from them in the mail yesterday. For 30% off…. ENTIRE PURCHASE. I think my husband was a little scared by how gleefully I clutched that piece of paper. It felt like a present! I’m pretty certain they didn’t anticipate someone filling up a cart or two of groceries and then presenting that postcard, but I read it 47 times and there is no fine print! I am working really, really hard at reigning in our grocery budget (a post for another time), and this will go a long way towards that goal for this month. Yay!

on laundry and other things

meagan — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:49:48 +0000

One household task I’ve never really minded, and maybe even kind of enjoy, is laundry. Good thing, considering on any given Friday, I do 4-5 loads, and then another 3-5 across the course of the weekend. It probably explains, at least a little, why we never batted an eye at the idea of cloth diapering triplets.

I work Tuesday-Thursday, so by Friday my inner domestic goddess is literally bursting at the seams. During the morning nap, I clean up, get the first few loads going, and perhaps a few other household projects. For the school year, we picked up my 4 year old (P) before lunch, and then during the second nap, he and I would do a project of some sorts. Today, we made brownies. But this is our last Friday of the school year, and from now on he will be at summer camp, and by the fall, who knows? I could be working full time and this could be it. Sniff!

…and just as suddenly

meagan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:25:08 +0000

As the whirlwind of my life seems to be calming down a little, oh how I find I miss blogging! I’m back, but sage is going to be a different place. Less reposting deals from other sites, more ‘Holy crap how do I deal with this economy with six mouths to feed?’, less round-up of crafts I want to do, and more what I’m actually doing. (Read: more mommyblogging) Please join me!

What have I been up to for the last three months?

Physical therapy for the little guys, who aren’t quite walking yet but will be soon. They’ll be 15 months tomorrow.
Lots of projects and cooking with the big brother.
Mostly, marriage repair, a category I’ve never excelled at but that we desperately need after 12 intense years, two cross country moves, countless job changes, and four kids.
Uncabling! We are an AppleTV and DVDs from the library household now, and couldn’t be happier.
Trying to budget, finally, after living for years like just hunting for bargains would be enough.
Tons of cooking, especially the once-fearful whole chickens.

I don’t know how often I’ll blog. I don’t know if I’ll always be on topic. But I really miss writing, so write I will.

sage reads: not with a bang

meagan — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:31:57 +0000

I wrote the sage reads below a few days ago, and in the interceding time have come to realize that while I love blogging and this blog was such a great friend when my babies were little and I had lots of free time in the house during naps and limited contact otherwise with the outside world, I need to focus back in on my family full of almost-toddlers, a stellar preschooler, and a husband who I love to pieces but has always (and unfairly) had to compete for my attention in all of this.

I’m going to continue to write at BeCentsAble every other week and to tweet when I can. Thanks for reading!

crafting

What I love about the Apartment Therapy family of blogs (including re-nest and ohdeeoh) is the focus on making something useful, chic, fresh, and functional out of something else you already have, extolling the values of both design and of reuse. A perfect example is How to: Make Shades Out of Mini Blinds. I can’t even tell you how many sets of mini blinds I’ve thrown away in various homes, let alone the custom roman shades we spent weeks making in our old condo, doing all of these steps by scratch. Never again!

Craft: inspires me similarly with the maternity top –> wrap tee. I have a few shirts I haven’t been able to sell on Craigslist (and one I didn’t really want to part with, anyhow) that are going to get this treatment now.

Craft: links I’ve also had open forever and are really helpful how-tos for some persistent problems in my life:

How to sew your own bedding (too much twin bedding for P, who now sleeps on a full/double bottom bunk)
How to sew a blind hem (I’m looking at you, gray wool pants!)
How to darn (and possibly resurrect my favorite, favorite sweater-coat-wrap-thing)

What an awesome rainy day activity, the yarn bowl! I remember making something like this but with paper mache. This looks at least slightly neater.

eating

Lemon bread and other yummy things are featured in the recipe box post at i have to say… Lemony baked goods always fit the bill right at the start of spring. Almost time to dust off my Passover Lemon Squares recipe!

If I were feeling more birthday-crafty this week, I’d definitely be making this cute dot cake for my triplets. Definitely saving the frosting trick for future reference though, especially the idea of using stencils to make letters. And these dot cookies would make such cute matching favors! (Crafty Crow also links to a how to on making stencils out of plastic lids, helping me to imagine actually decorating a cake someday, something I’ve always been rather challenged at.)

resources

Tiny Choices hosts the Green Moms Carnival and they’re talking spring cleaning. Lots of great ideas for eco-friendly cleaning, organizing, and more. And $5 Dinners has more homemade cleaning products recipes, one of which I’m going to try out as soon as a Dawn coupon I’m expecting in a trade arrives in my mailbox.

While you’re making your own, Crafting a Green World has links to some DIY beauty supplies.

Re-nest shares a list of plants good for xeriscaping, meaning they would be drought-tollerant and save money and resources since they require less watering, in general. As our yard emerges from the last clumps of snow, I am definitely giving this list more than a quick glance, since we have some persistently weedy areas that I would like to fill with perennials and then forget about.

Also outdoors, I have a rusty-but-cute mailbox that is screaming for some of this lower-VOC spray paint. I’m thinking of doing the porch light fixtures, too. Color suggestions to match a cream brick exterior?

preparing a whole chicken?

meagan — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:53:06 +0000

The parents of our good friend down the street have an organic chicken farm and we are getting our first delivery of 6 frozen birds today (at the wholesale price of $2/lb!). I’ve always been a boneless/skinless breast and thigh girl myself, until recently when I started getting rotisserie chickens at Whole Foods and using the meat as well as bones. This is a whole other ballgame, though. I have no idea how to deal with an entire frozen chicken, from butchering to cooking and beyond. It’s clearly time to learn.

Anyone have an tips or ideas for me?

sage finds: march 13

meagan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:44:02 +0000

Re-nest has a great Weekend Green Guide out, featuring some notable sales on linens and housewares, including:

THIS WEEK
• The Company Store Organic Bedding Sale
• Structured Green Floor Sample Sale
• Amenity Home Linen Pillows Sale
• EConscious Market Sale
• Velocity Sale
• West Elm Sale
• Branch Home Sale
• VivaTerra Sale
• Shirts of Bamboo Sale
• Eden Home Sale
• Stray Dog Designs Sale
• Pottery Barn Organic Bedding Sale

Baby Cheapskate has a line into gDiapers again this week:

Gaiam has the gDiaper Starter kit plus an extra pair of gPants and three extra liners (for a total of 6 liners) for $34.99. That’s a great deal, but it gets better, if you go through Mr. Rebates, you get 10% back. There is also the coupon code AFSHP3 to get free shipping as long as you spend $25 or more. Another coupon code is for 15% off, which is A315. If you are only buying one starter kit, then it is better to get the free shipping. If you’re buying two, then 15% off is better.

I do need starter kits! However, I don’t need them now. I wonder if never buying disosables even for outings again would be enough to convinve Mr Sage that we ought to take advantage of this deal. I don’t love the starter kit covers, so maybe I’ll try my luck on eBay instead.

Can you bear to see anymore crush-inducing pillows? Check out these cute etsy vintage fabric whales, via ohdeeoh!

An absolute steal for $18 each at Kate Durkin.