Hi everyone! I hope you had a fun, productive week. We are preparing for a road trip, so several of my frugal things are related to that. Note: this post contains affiliate links.

1. Groceries: we did end up breaking our no-spend month. On Saturday I spent $10.08 on some snacks for our road trip. So that was a bummer! But we were still able to save almost $120.00 on food this month.

2. Cooking: Again, I spent the week making varied meals to use up our leftovers. Like a random can of sardines. We still have a ways to go in order to completely clean out the fridge, freezer and pantry. But I've very satisfied with what I accomplished in January.

3. Sewing: I finally finished (well... almost, kind of) our toddler's car seat poncho! Basically the poncho is a wearable blanket. I lined hers with green fleece, used drop cloth for the outer layer, and put faux fur around the hood. I almost quit the project after making just the lining. "She looks like a hobbit!" I told my husband, while practically dying of laughter. "I'll just buy some girly fabric and make a new one," I said. He said no, he liked the "hobbit" look! So I stuck with that theme. There is still one poncho element left to add—and an alteration I'd like to make—but it's fully functional now, as-is. I spent a few dollars on the section of drop cloth that I used, but other than that all of the fabric and supplies were free.

I also made two zippered cloth toiletry bags for our upcoming road trip. I made a larger one for myself, and a smaller one for Princess. They aren't perfect, but they were free! I used some old jeans and a Goodwill-bound baby jacket for fabric and notions. Did you know a cheap zipper at Walmart costs almost $2.00? That's crazy! It took about 15 minutes to get the zipper out of our free jacket, so I think that was time well spent. Before I made the pouches, I looked at Walmart for some cheap toiletry bags. I could find any for less than $4.00, so I decided to just go ahead and make some. I added a hanging loop on each bag for easier storage.

4. Gardening: I bought some more seeds this week at Home Depot. So far, I've spent $18.00 on seeds. Now all that I have left to buy are some seedlings, later on in May. I'm hoping to keep garden costs under $30.00 this year.

5. Reading: I've really enjoyed the amount of reading I've been able to do this month. While this isn't "frugal" right away, I believe that the information in books gives a high return for the cost. I buy books at thrift stores and garage sales, or get them from the library for free. This spring I signed up for a subscription reading service called Scribd. After I finished the three-month free trial, I decided to join. It costs $9.00 per month, but my subscription covers an unlimited number of ebooks, audio books and PDF files. I can easily burn through several audio books and an ebook or two per month, plus it is helpful to have almost any book I want on hand for reference. Not only that, but my husband and I share an account, so he can read and listen to different books on his phone. In January alone I listened to two books on potty training, two books on French culture and started one biography. I read one book on my phone and referenced at least five others. We are going to download a destination-related audio book before we hit the road later this week. The audio books in particular are so valuable to me, because I can "read" while I work on other things. Scribd is one subscription service that I think is 100% worth the money. Would you pay $2.00 or less for someone to read you an entire book while you did other things? I would! I learn so many valuable, profitable, money-saving things from books. And while you can get audio books from the library, the selection is limited and many of them are still on CDs. I used to order ebooks from the library; it's just a pain to try to get the files from the CD to your phone, etc. If you don't have $9.00 to spend every month on subscription audio, I would recommend downloading the free OverDrive app. You need a library card, and I believe there is a limit on how many books you can have "checked out" at one time, but it is free!

I think that's all for this week. I hope you've all had a fruitful, productive January!

-Bethany

​It's cold here in Michigan... negative fifteen degrees as I write this! On days like this, I'm especially thankful to be a homemaker cooped up in our little nest all day. We've had a fairly mild winter so far, but I think it's finally turned cold. I spent a lot of the last week reading, writing and happily working on indoor projects.

1. Groceries: Again, we didn't spend any money on groceries. Only 10 more days until we can go shopping again! I'm making a list of "necessities" as we run out of them; cream, sour cream, carrots, eggs, red meat, etc. as we run out. There are still plenty of things in the pantry and freezer that need to be used up.

2. Cooking: I made cheese from some prepared powdered milk that was nearing expiration. I also made some new recipes to use up ingredients that I had on hand. I learned how to make microwave mac 'n' cheese in the Instant Pot (hint: you do it just like you would for regular pasta. Add 1 cup water for every 4 oz. pasta, then cook on "Manual" for four minutes). I made an apple pie for the first time in several years, and got to try out my $10.00 apple peeler. It worked great! Of course three or four of the 20 apples I peeled broke in half while peeling/coring, but I think that was user error. It's probably been at least 15 years since I used an apple peeler; something no household should be without! In addition to making a pie for fresh eating, I also froze some "pie apples" and made little mini-pies and froze them. I used my Williams Sonoma mini pie mold to make the smaller pies. At first I thought the pie mold was a piece of junk, but then again... I think it was user error. My last couple of pies turned out pretty nice-looking. Lastly, I made applesauce with the peelings and ate it for lunch. 

3. Sewing: I am working on a car seat poncho for Baby. Like all of my other projects, this one seems to be taking an eternity to finish. Right now we're using it as-is... unhemmed.

4. Chicken/bird feed: I used some fat drippings, bird seed and a dab of peanut butter to make suet cakes. So far, neither the birds nor chickens are showing interest. Then again, the birds haven't shown interest in the bird feeder I just filled, either.

5. Learned new baby signs. I started doing a couple of sign language motions with Princess when she was six months old. I never saw any response from her until well after a year old, and then she only made ONE of the three signs. I thought maybe sign language wasn't worth the effort, since she had started saying real words ("bye bye", "hi there", "uh-oh", etc.). Imagine my surprise, several weeks ago, when she picked up the sign for "potty" in just a few hours! Since then I've been making more of an effort to teach her signs like "sleep", "help", and "more". My hope is that the signs will be an alternative to whining and throwing a fit when I don't know what she wants. 

6. I ordered seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (four packets for $10.00) and started some sweet potato slips. The slips are from sweet potatoes I grew last year. I have plenty of seeds left from last year (and years before that) that I will use for this year's garden. 

Also, you can watch my latest Youtube vlog below:

​I think that's about it, folks! I hope you all had a frugal week. Stay warm!

-Bethany

We are officially one half way through our zero-spend month of cooking!

1. Groceries: We didn't buy any groceries. I did salvage some packaged food that was headed for the dumpster. I also harvested lettuce from our cold frame, and collected eggs from our chickens. I also shelled some almonds from Christmas.   

2. Cooking: I cooked a turkey this week, and made broth. I used powdered milk from the pantry to make milk for cereal. You can watch a clip of my turkey process on this week's Youtube vlog:​

In order to cut costs, I am attempting to start some of my own seedlings this year; heirloom tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, cucumbers and some herb and flower seeds. I'll be purchasing five seed packets from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds ($15.00), five seed packets from Walmart ($10.00 or less), and five plants (mostly herbs—$15.00) from a nursery. That sounds like a lot of money to spend on a garden, but I will use the seeds for several years, and the herb plants are perennials. The "vegetable" garden will also produce fresh herbs, fruit and flowers, and those things increase the value of my garden significantly.

I've planned the following beds: 1) culinary herbs, 2) flowers, 3) medicinal herbs 4) mints and tea herbs, 5) long beans, 6) sweet potatoes, 7) peppers, 8) tomatoes, 9 &10) cold frames and 11 & 12) open beds for any miscellaneous plants. During the warmer months I'm going to replace the greenhouse lid with a chicken-wire climbing frame to hold cucumbers. Hopefully the vining plants will provide shade for the lettuce and keep it from bolting.

Instead of using grass clippings for mulch, I will (again) use landscape fabric for the transplants, and old strawberry straw for the seeded items. This will reduce the amount of time needed to gather mulch. I have a LOT of straw on the strawberry patch right now, so I'll be able to use that for mulching even the flowers, bulbs and raspberries.

I made a general calendar of when each gardening task should be done. For example, I know that raccoons, Japanese beetles and blister beetles all come out at a certain time. I've made a note to purchase and/or set traps before those months, in order to reduce time spent picking off bugs, as well as lost crops. 

I plan on putting in an hour of strawberry weeding time every day. It may take less than an hour every day, but I'm planning an hour just to be safe. The trick is to do it consistently, and not wait for a once-a-month weeding marathon (which is what I did last year... big mistake). I hope that by keeping up a strong deer fence, that the strawberries will be able to overpower the weeds this year. ​

So, that is about it! I hope your week was full of frugal accomplishments. :)

​Til next time,
​-Bethany

1. Shopping: I've decided that January is going to be a no-spend month for groceries. We have a ton of food in the freezer, pantry and fridge that needs to be eaten. Not only that, but redistributing January's grocery money throughout the year will increase the future budget from $130.00 per month to $140.83. I will be doing Youtube updates on the no-spend month, so you can find more details about what we've been doing there.

2. Cooking: Mostly, I've been trying to use up excess food/ingredients left over from the holidays. I made several green smoothies. I also salvaged carrots, celery, and other items that were beginning to go bad in the fridge.

3. Organization: I spent $30.00 on plastic storage bins for our storage room. It wasn't technically "frugal"; as in, I spent money on the boxes. However, being organized is frugal because it prevents waste. Having my tools and supplies better organized will mean that I buy less doubles and lose fewer items. I bought large, medium and small containers, and used them to sort out tools and supplies for various projects. For example, I put all of the paper craft items in one box, soap items in another, etc. In the past I've just kept these items in old cardboard boxes. While that system worked, it looked "junky" wasn't pest-proof. I'm not sure why I didn't buy matching boxes sooner. I love the way they look, plus they actually stack well. The boxes make things easier to move around.

That's all, folks! I look forward to reporting more frugal accomplishments next week.

-Bethany

Hi everyone! I am back to regular blogging again. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves during the holidays, and now I'm excited to be starting a fresh new year. While I love setting goals for a new year, it's just as fun to look over goals from last year and see what you ended up finishing (or starting!). It's so rewarding to see the results of a job well done.

Today I'd like to share some things I accomplished over the last year. Just to be fair, I never accomplish all that I set out to. But if I do finish or keep up with half of my goals, then that is still more than I would have accomplished with no goals at all.

1. My first full year of parenting. I don't set goals for our daughter, but I do set goals for myself as a parent. There were wins and fails over the last year. I not-so-faithfully tried to do baby sign language. Princess is almost 16 months old, and she uses one of the three signs we worked on. At this point she's almost talking (and as funny as it sounds, I can differentiate between which grunts are "help me, I'm stuck" and which ones are "where's my sippy cup"), so the sign language is pretty pointless.  Cloth diapers were a success. Elimination communication was not a success. I got tired of rushing her to the potty for "dry runs", and didn't even save money because we were already using cloth diapers. At this point we're less than a year away from potty training, so again, I feel like EC is a bit pointless for my lifestyle. In other news, I reached a personal goal of breastfeeding her past one year, and we also read through nine volumes of Arthur Maxwell's The Bible Story over the course of nine months. I taught her to drink water from a cup (shot glass) at nine months, but otherwise Montessori weaning didn't really work for us. Like baby sign language and EC, I don't see the point of a parent spending so much time to "teach" a skill that the child will easily learn a little later on. I want to spend my time on activities that will benefit my kid (or let's be honest—myself) in a long term way, not just for a couple of months. Some of my parenting experiments have worked, some haven't, but it has been a very fun (and I would say, successful) ride so far.

​2. I wrote and published another book, and almost doubled my author earnings from 2017. My ongoing goal is to publish one quality book per year. It takes time and dedication to get a book from idea to publication, so this is an accomplishment that I'm very proud of.

3. I kept honeybees for the first time. This one was kind of a failure (read all about it here), but I did learn a lot and get some hands-on experience. 

4. I ran a profitable roadside strawberry stand. This took a relentless amount of work—far more than I had imagined—but with some improvements, I hope the workload in 2019 will be lighter.

5. I began bullet journaling. I started doing this in May, and I believe it has been a huge help to my household management. I don't believe I would have finished as many small projects or been able to stick with a good weekly schedule without my bullet journal.

6. I started playing duets with my beginner piano students. After a few years of doing lessons, I can see where I've made mistakes and what areas need improvement. Every month I take some money and try to invest it back into the "business". Usually this takes the form of prizes, but one month I bought a companion book to our beginner book (Teaching Little Fingers to Play). I think playing duets with the kids really helped their timing and also their motivation. I felt more in tune with what they were practicing as well. Sometimes we teachers can get in the habit of passively listening to a student's work, giving it a thumbs up or thumbs down, and then collecting the fee at the end of class. That's not good teaching. I feel like working on duets made me a far better teacher.

*****

I feel like those are some of the bigger long-term accomplishments of last year. Of course, there are always little accomplishments that happen every week or month, that I like to record on the "Frugal Accomplishments This Week" post. For example, I made my very first gingerbread house from scratch this year. I read more books and listened to more audiobooks than I can remember. I grew several new plants in the garden, and one of my orchids rebloomed for the first time ever! These are small things, but to me they can be the highlight of a week or month. Those little things are still worth celebrating and recording, in my opinion.


I hope your 2019 is off to a good start!

Til next time,
-Bethany