5. Later that day we went out for Date Night. First we went to GFS (Gordon Food Service, a restaurant supply store) to get some small white paper bags to package my market soap in. While we were there, we found mozzarella cheese for $2.00/lb., cream cheese for $1.13/package, and shredded cheese for $2.20/lb. We bought 6 lbs. of mozzarella, six packages of cream cheese, and 5 lbs. of shredded cheddar cheese. Previously I had been getting my cheese from the Amish store in Indiana and then shredding it and freezing it, but I think the Gordon's cheese will work better. 1) The prices are better, 2) Gordon's is closer so I won't have to buy and freeze 60 lbs at a time, and 3) the cheddar cheese comes shredded, so that saves me a lot of time and work. Cream cheese lasts for months in the fridge.

6. For dinner, I used a $5 off coupon at Ruby Tuesday. This brought our total- tax, tip and all- to under $10 per person. We've discovered that prices have risen since we first started dating, and by the time you both eat a burger, plus tax and tip, you've spent $25.00-$30.00. Even a $5.00 savings on date night every week adds up to over $250.00 per year.

And yes, for those of you who are wondering... we do spend more money eating out than we do on actual groceries. 

7. On the way home, we picked up free Jet's Bread from Jet's pizza, with an email incentive coupon I had printed out. We didn't eat it that night because we were so full from Ruby Tuesday, but it was still great the second day.

I have a lot to learn about using coupons. For example, before I started restaurant couponing, I didn't realize that many email incentives have to be used within two weeks, and of course I signed up for 4-5 email lists in one day. :( So some of the email incentives I got two weeks ago have already been wasted. Knowing this, however, I waited until our date night to sign up for Ruby Tuesday's email list to get a free appetizer. However, after I signed up they sent a notice that the coupon would come to my inbox "within 24 hours". WHAT!?! I needed the coupon in, like, ONE hour!! Needless to say, we left without the coupon. So just FYI, a good time to sign up for email lists is a day or two before you plan to go out.

The other thing I'm realizing is that many offers cannot be combined or "stacked" with other offers. For example, along with my "$5 off $15 purchase" coupon, I also had a "buy one entree get one 50% off" coupon, and an Ibotta rebate for $5 off $15 purchase. However, I could only pick one of these to use. It's a bummer, but we did still save a few dollars.  

8. Used Ibotta rebates to get $0.75 ketchup, $0.63 hamburger buns, and Good Earth tea for $1.23. Good Earth is a more expensive brand, but with the rebate it was cheaper than the store-brand that I would normally buy. There were a lot of rebates this week, on account of Memorial Day.

9. Collected more grass mulch, planted some free tomato plants and set up a sprinkler for my garden. It makes watering SO much easier!! I used a sprinkler and hose-splitter we bought last year, so no costs there.

Just this week, we brought home a road-kill deer. Between the tenderloins and one ham, we were able to harvest 14 lbs. of meat. For free! Even with limited freezer space, I was still able to keep it. Thanks to... our handy-dandy pressure canner. :)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the pressure canner. It allows me to make cheap bulk dried beans into ready-to-eat canned beans. It also allows us to keep far more meat in food storage than we would be able to, otherwise. I'm not a huge fan of pressure canning vegetables*, but that option is open as well.

Note: I didn't include the cost of canning jars, rings and lids in this analysis. I assume that if you're ready to attempt pressure canning, you've been water bath canning and already have a stockpile of jars/supplies.

Potential Savings:

Canned meat: The main cost savings with canned meat has to do with energy; you don't have to run a second freezer to store all of your stockpiled bargain/free meat. A vague (and probably too conservative) guess at energy costs for our old freezer is $6.00 per month.

Therefore, our yearly savings for canning meat = $72.00 per freezer of meat. 

A bonus of canning meat is that it comes out of the jar already cooked. This energy savings cancels out the energy cost of pressure canning.

Another bonus? If you pressure can bone-in meat (I use free chicken), your jar will have gelatin-rich broth in it, as well as the meat. This is perfect for making soup with. A lot of people mess around with either 1) making broth every week in a crockpot, or 2) making a ginormous pot once a month and freezing it in quart-size freezer bags. If you are one of these people, not only do you have a more crowded freezer, but you've also got to pay for all of those plastic bags and deal with any that bust open. If you freeze broth in glass jars, no doubt you've lost some due to breakage (caused by the expanding liquid). All this can be avoided if you making bone broth by pressure canning.

Canned beans: let's say an average can of navy beans costs $1.00 and holds two cups of cooked beans.

I buy my beans in bulk for $0.79/lb. One pound of dry beans= 2 1/3 cup. There is only 2/3 cup of dried beans in a can of store-bought beans, which means that my home-canned beans only cost about $0.23 per can. Add $0.05 per jar for a canning lid (I use mine at least twice before throwing them away), and the home canned beans cost $0.28 per can, for a cost savings of $0.72 per can.

If we used one pint jar ("can") of beans per week, the yearly savings for canned beans = $37.44. The more beans you eat, the more savings. But I'm just doing calculations for the two of us.

A beany bonus: some people cook a ton of beans in the crock pot, and then freeze them in plastic bags. In addition to using up freezer space and wasting plastic baggies, frozen beans have to be thawed before you can use them. Canned beans only have to be soaked and canned, and then they are ready to eat... forever. No freezer burn. No cooking, no freezing, no thawing, no re-washing plastic freezer bags.

Total yearly canned meat & beans savings: $109.44

Investing in a Pressure Canner & ROI
I bought our pressure canner from Walmart with some leftover wedding money. It is a Presto 16-quart aluminum pressure canner, and still costs only $69.97. As you can see, it will pay itself off in less than a year.

ROI after 1 year of use: $109.44 savings - $69.97 investment = $39.47 NET savings = 56% ROI
After 2 years: $148.91 net savings = 213% ROI
After 3 years: $258.35 = 369% ROI
After 4 years: $367.79 = 525% ROI
After 5 years: $477.23 = 682% ROI

It's hard to determine the exact ROI on this one, because it really depends how much and how long you use the pressure canner. A large family who cans for many years will save THOUSANDS of dollars by purchasing a pressure canner. But even a small family like ours will save enough in just one year to justify the cost. In my opinion, everyone should buy and learn how to use a pressure canner.

Last Words
What are you missing out on by not having or using a pressure canner? It may cause you to turn down fantastic deals because you don't have enough freezer space or can't eat a large amount of ___ before it goes bad. Pressure canning makes it possible to buy in bulk, even for a small family like ours. Instead of paying $2.00/lb. for chicken, I can pay $0.50/lb at Gordons. Health nuts can grow their own chickens. My point though, is that learning how to use a pressure canner will open up SO many more areas of saving. You will save more money on food by buying in bulk, you'll save $$ by not using disposable 2- or 3- use freezer bags, you'll save energy by not using the freezer, and you'll spend less time cooking and cleaning up after cooking. It's a win, win, win. 

We have one refrigerator/freezer combo, and one upright chest freezer to store all of the fruits & veggies that I grow, plus meats and farmers market ingredients. I use pressure canning as my "overflow" method for dealing with meats that don't fit in the freezer. Our freezer space is precious, and I really don't have the time or space to be freezing beans, broth, leftovers, crock-pot meals etc., so pressure canning is the perfect solution for those things. Unlike plastic baggies, canning jars are easy to wash and can be used for years- possibly a lifetime, if you're careful.

One of my goals in life is to save time, space, money and energy. Pressure canning does all of these things, and in some cases, produces a superior product to that which is frozen (tough meats come out of the jar tender, with no gristle). Sometimes I wonder if people would even bother freezing meat and beans if they knew how easy and cheap it was to can them.

-Bethany

*I'm not a fan of pressure canning veggies, because the high temperatures produced during pressure canning can destroy vitamins. Minerals, on the other hand, will stay intact regardless of heat (to the best of my knowledge). Therefore, I freeze any produce with high vitamin content, and can things like meat & beans. 

Hello friends and homemakers! Today's topic is growing your own herbal tea. Herbal teas are some of the easiest things to grow, especially if they are perennial plants and come back year after year. In fact, you probably have some herbal teas already growing in your backyard, disguised as weeds or trees.

Potential Savings
I drink primarily herbal tea, or green/black tea & herbal tea blends. No coffee for me! Because of this, I tend to buy a fair amount of tea. In fact, I would probably say I drink enough tea to equal one bag every day, for the entire year. 

One of my favorite teas (Kroger Private Selection brand) costs $2.48 per box of 20 bags. That equals out to $0.12 per 2.0 g. bag of tea. A box contains 40g. (1.43 oz) of tea.

$0.12 per day x 365 days = $43.80 per year savings.

Return On Investment
As I mentioned before, if you know what to look for, you can potentially find herbal tea in your own backyard. You can also get a free transplant from a friend, or you can buy a small plant from a nursery. For our intents and purposes, I'll say that the plant or packet of seeds costs $2.00. So, that is your investment.

$41.80 return - ($43.80 - $2.00 investment) = 2090% return on investment

Hourly Wage
Collecting and preserving herbal tea is fairly straightforward. I go out there with a pair of scissors, or pick the leaves/stalks with my bare hands. Then I bring it inside and lay everything out on a cookie sheet. (Depending on the plant, I'll strip the leaves from the stalks either before or after drying.) Then I put the sheet in my gas oven overnight (the pilot light provides enough heat... I don't turn the oven on at all). When the leaves are crispy to the touch- and this may take up to two days- then I strip the leaves off of the stems and put them in an airtight container- usually a mason-type jar or recycled plastic container. Lastly, I label the contents.

Herbs commonly used for herbal tea: peppermint, spearmint, chamomile, raspberry leaf, nettles, pineapple weed, lemon balm. If you'd like to re-create some of your favorite teas, just save the ingredients list on the back of the box for reference. Unfortunately, many herbal teas have things like "natural flavors"... for example "peach flavor" or "pomegranate flavor" that you can't make at home. But there are some other ingredients that you can find at the store or make.

Common additions to herbal tea: stevia, hibiscus, dried ginger, dried orange & lemon peel. Whenever I have an orange (not very often) I try to save the zest. You can do this by taking a sharp paring knife and carefully removing the colored part of the rind... not the white pithy stuff! Dry the peel as you would herbal tea (in the oven) and break it into pieces before adding to loose leaf tea. Stevia is a sweetener that you can buy or grow in the garden. Hibiscus is very often used to add fruity flavor to teas. You can get hibiscus flowers in bulk, or buy tea bags with hibiscus in them.

I use a teapot with infusing insert to make herbal tea for Hubs and I. If I'm only making tea for myself, I just use a small tea ball infuser. You can also buy "press and brew" disposable tea bags, but I think that is too much bother for a $0.12 bag of tea. Plus it is a lot of waste. Brewing loose leaf tea allows you to use the old tea leaves for compost.

I figure it takes me about three minutes to prepare 2.0 grams of tea (as much as there is in a tea bag). Therefore: 

$0.12 per 3-minute increment x 20 (increments per hour) = $2.40 per hour 

Conclusion
​What I like about this "investment" (that is, planting a tea garden) is the high potential for savings. Tea for one person alone has the potential to save $0.84 per week. In a family with three or four tea drinkers, this little project could save over a hundred dollars per year. If you are gardener or forager anyway, why not grow some herbal tea?

Of course, the downside of this project is the "hourly wage". It's below my $4.00/hr. standard. However, some teas take far less time to prepare. This will increase the hourly wage substantially. For example, spearmint leaves are a lot less labor-intensive to prepare than peppermint leaves, which are smaller. Drying a whole stem of raspberry leaves and stripping them with a gloved hand is a lot easier than cutting tiny chamomile flower heads with a pair of scissors. So, some teas are better to grow at home than others.

Do you enjoy herbal tea? Have any tips or tricks for the rest of us?

I had a lot of fun and got many things done this week. On Thursday night Hubs went out of state for a few days, which made me lonely. But do you know how productive one can be without having to make meals, make the bed or stop what you're doing when he comes home? A lot!!

1. Cut asparagus from the garden. Hubs hates asparagus, so while he was gone I took the opportunity to eat a lot of it. Asparagus and eggs, three nights in a row. Delish. :)

2. Sold 4 dozen eggs (3 at the farmers market).

3. Line-dried some laundry.

4. Dried lemon balm for tea.

5. Made $43.93 at the farmers market, after costs. It was cold and windy, so not many people showed up. Nevertheless, I still made $86 in sales. Last year I would have struggled to make more than $20.00 net profit.

I sold all of my granola, three dozen eggs, a jar of jam, one loaf of zucchini bread, three dozen cookies, three rhubarb crisps and one book. It was a good day. :) I'm driving Hubs' 1991 manual transmission Saturn to the market now, which is a frugal accomplishment in itself. Though it's a bear to drive, I LOVE LOVE LOVE how small the car is as opposed to the truck. Plus it gets better gas mileage.

6. Picked lilacs for the kitchen table.

7. Made yogurt, cheese, and... butter! One of the highlights of my week was learning how to make butter with my goat's milk. It was super easy... all I did was scoop the cream off the top (yes, Nigerian Dwarf milk has a lot of cream, yes it separates to the top after a couple days, and NO, it's not "naturally homogenized") and put it into my Vitamix blender for literally a few seconds.

Goat butter is softer and whiter than cows' butter. It was harder for me to rinse than cows' butter, because it was so soft. The butter was almost flavorless at first, but after a few days it developed a "cultured" flavor... probably because I didn't get all of the buttermilk out.

I've started collecting cream from almost all of my milk now, to put in the freezer until I have enough to make butter with. This is a huge breakthrough for me! Making butter is one more way that I can extract value from my goat milk and save money. Fats and oils are something I don't use a lot of because they cost so much, but now I can make my own.

8. Went for a bike ride and collected cans. It's kinda my free gym membership/ treasure hunt/ nature walk (ride). 

9. I feel like I did a lot of work in the garden this week when it was worm. On Monday I collected a huge pile of mulch (grass clippings, raked up and dumped in the garden). I also planted more seeds and mulched more of my raised beds. Transplanted some herbs. Over the weekend it got VERY cold (almost freezing), so I decided to put cloches on my smaller transplants. They were simply plastic cups with holes punched in the top. I will probably reuse the cups for seedlings/cloches next year.

Thankfully I only lost some melon seedlings and a basil plant to the cold. Everything else made it though alright.

​10. Started sprouting my sweet corn seeds indoors. I have done this for the past two years, and it's worked very well. This week I'll plant the sprouts in the garden.

11. Got a free onion and discount tea using Ibotta rebates.

12. Lastly, I fixed Hubs backpack before he left. It has seen a lot of wear, being our primary motorcycle backpack and carrying everything from eggs to milk to morel mushrooms (yep, we found some more this week!). The bottom was starting to tear open, I so I used dental floss to sew it back up. My dad always used dental floss to sew up his Carhartts, so I thought it would work well for the backpack. :)

Goals for Next Week

1. Use up extra milk.
2. Work on animal housing arrangements.
3. Finish planting flower/vegetable seeds and transplants.

****

P.S. Guess what else I did this weekend... printed off my first restaurant coupon! It's a buy 1 get 1 free entree, so Hubs and I will be cutting our date night bill in half sometime soon. Some people earn money/free stuff by signing up for different credit cards, but you can do the same thing with restaurants! Many of them have a "Loyalty Program" or "Rewards Card" or "E-Club". Many times they will give you a freebie or deal just for signing up.

If you're a subscriber to my email list, you can do this with me. The newsletter I sent out today has seven different ways you can save money when you eat out. I've also included the spreadsheet I'm using- it lists over 50 different restaurants- to keep track of all the freebies and discounts. 

Happy saving!
-Bethany

I feel like a 4-day supply (12 napkins) would be sufficient for one person. This would give you enough time to launder the dirty napkins before you needed to use them again. I don't factor in the cost of laundering cloth napkins because they're so small, and if you are doing a load of laundry anyway, a couple of napkins are not going to cost more. Almost nobody is going to run a separate load of only cloth napkins. 

ROI & Hourly Wage 
It took me 30 minutes to make a one-person supply of cloth napkins. If I use my napkins instead of disposables for a year, I'll save $5.46. Therefore, an hour's worth of making cloth napkins (say, if I would have made some for Hubs at the same time), would yield a $10.92 savings; that is, a $10.92 hourly wage.

If we caculate the ROI based on your time investment (because there is no monetary investment), at a generic "housewife wage" of $4.00/hr., we find the following:

$4/hr. x 1 hr. = $4.00 investment
$10.92 savings - $4.00 investment = $6.92 return (173% ROI)

In My Opinion...
Is this project worth your time? If you look at the ROI and hourly wage only, it is. However, I'm not too keen on washing and folding 42 napkins each week for a savings of $0.21. I really think there are easier ways to earn/save that much every week (for example... recycling aluminum cans!). We'll probably use the napkins I already made, but for us the savings are too insignificant to completely stop buying paper napkins. Plus, we will still buy and use paper napkins for guests/cookouts/etc. 

I think this would be a good idea for larger families, however. Because there are more people eating but still only one or two adults earning an income, larger families will need to stretch that income farther than small families. Plus, making (and folding) cloth napkins is a nice project for kids. 

Ultimately, I don't think there is anything to LOSE by making and using cloth napkins. As I sometimes tell Hubs, "Every penny counts!" The question is just whether or not there is enough pennies to gain for it to be worth the hassle.

What do you think? Are cloth napkins in your future?

-Bethany

*I realize now that it would have been faster to just surge the edges of each napkin. However, my surger was broken and I know that most ladies don't have a serger sewing machine in the spare room. Pinking shears are available at Walmart, I think for around $10. And you can use them for more than just making napkins.

1. Hubs found some morel mushrooms out under the apple tree when he was mowing the lawn. He came in all excited about it, and when I went back out with him, we found even more! I fried some of them for Hubs, and dried the rest in our gas oven (turned off... the pilot light does all the work!). 

2. Sold 3 dozen eggs*.

3. Made $69.11 at the farmers market! Saturday was my first week of the season, and it went pretty well. I netted 13% MORE than my highest net earnings of any week last year. My average net earnings on any given week in 2015 was $30.56, so you can see how much I've progress I've made since then.

4. Used some Kroger coupons to get a free bag of bagels and free package of oreos. Yum!

5. In the garden I did a lot of planting, transplanting and mulching. I planted a lot of flowers in the market/fodder garden, and also transplanted and mulched the tomato and pepper raised beds with grass clippings.

6. Went to a community "free" garage sale hosted by a local church. Every spring they put a trailer in the church parking lot, and people can donate their extra household items. Then they arrange all of the stuff inside the church like a garage sale... but without any prices! Everyone gets a trash bag to fill up. This year I found some shirts, fabric, a book to sell on Amazon, some tiny tea candles, a beautiful gravy boat, and a greeting card box of random sewing notions. At least, I THOUGHT they were random sewing notions. 

It's actually a braided rug-making kit! With some bonus needle-lace making supplies. I was really excited about this because some of our rugs are wearing out, and I've always wanted to make a braided rug.

I also found a working waffle iron at the sale. We rarely have hot breakfasts because it's too much bother for me in the morning... not just mixing up the batter, but mostly all of the cleanup afterward and Hubs ends up eating alone because I'm still busy cooking the food. The iron is easy to clean, plus I like waffles better than pancakes anyway.

7. And of course, I saved the trash bag from the sale to reuse for trash.

*******

Busy, Busy
Right now we are in the peak of "the busy season". Hubs is super busy at his work, and I'm occupied with farmers market stuff and trying to get as much gardening done as possible. Ironically, we spend far less money during busy seasons because we don't have time to go sightseeing or shopping or eating out. Finally on Sunday we did go to the grocery store, but in the weeks before that we didn't even go grocery shopping (don't worry- we didn't starve. Eggs and milk are produced here at home, grains have been purchased in bulk and meat and vegetables come from the freezer and pantry). 

I know that many people spend MORE during busy seasons because of convenience food, buying services to save time, etc. However, it's also easy to eliminate that thing entirely when time is short. Though I try hard to keep laundry and dishes from piling up, it doesn't hurt anyone if the toilet doesn't get swished X times per week.

Likewise, some of our meals look a little different because I'm focused on using up what we have in the fridge/freezer instead of going by a menu plan. Though menu plans are wonderful, it's actually cheaper to just throw together meals from whatever is cheap/free instead of buying ingredients for a specific meal. 

Goals for This Week:
1. Make granola, pastries and cookies for farmers market.
2. Finish transplanting flowers and herbs.
3. Start soaking sweet corn seeds.
4. Mulch AS MUCH as possible!
5. Plant squash seeds and flower seeds.
6. Pick flowers for the kitchen table.
7. Write 2 more blog articles.

​Hope you are having a wonderful "busy season"!
-Bethany

*I also sold 5 dozen eggs at the farmers market. Eggs for my regular customers are $2.00, and farmers market eggs are $3.00. So instead of making $16.00 selling 8 dozen eggs, I made $21.00.

Welcome to the Friday ROI! If you click on the "Finance" tab in the top left hand corner, you'll see that I've added a page called "Investing". No, I'm giving advice on the stock market! What I will be talking about is different ways that we can invest small amounts of time and money, and the size of return on those small investments.

Last summer at the farmers market, I set up every week next to a vegetable gardener I called "Rhubarb Man". He was full of stories from the good old days, garden shenanigans and tips. During the fall he sold a lot of garlic, and happened to be giving out free tips on how to grow your own. Of course he gave this information to every customer that bought garlic, so the idea of growing some started to grow on ME!

Growing Some Garlic
I ended up buying four bulbs from him to plant in my own garden. There were still a few 4x4' spots that did not have raised lasagna beds yet, so I decided that I would put my garlic there over the winter. It took about 10 minutes to work the soil a little bit, and 20 minutes to plant all four bulbs (about 30-40 cloves). I put a small cattle panel over the spot so that I'd remember where my garlic patch was.

This March, the weather finally warmed up and my little garlic cloves began to sprout. I counted 35 sprouts. If each of these sprouts grow into a bulb of garlic, what will be the return on my $2.00 investment?

Calculating the Return on Investment
4 bulbs @ $0.50 per bulb = $2.00, + 0.5 hrs of my time @ $4.00/hr. = $2.00
Total investment = $4.00

35 bulbs @ $0.50 per bulb = $17.50 - $4.00 investment = $13.50

Therefore the return on my $4.00 was almost 338%.

Hourly Wage
You can also look at growing garlic from the standpoint of an hourly wage. 

35 bulbs @ $0.50 per bulb = $17.50
$17.50 - monetary investment of $2.00 = $15.50
$15.50 x 2 (30 minute sessions) = $31.00 per hour

Conclusion
I've come to the conclusion that growing garlic is well worth the time and money involved. Either way you look at it- $31.00 per hour or a 338% return- there's no denying that this is something many more housewives should be doing.

In addition to being incredibly easy and a small time commitment, garlic is super healthy for you. Use it to flavor food OR in herbal concoctions to help fight infection. One of the reasons I planted so much is that I'll be using it for my animals as well as for Hubs and I.

Here's to growing great garlic!
​-Bethany

Whew! I feel like April was one big learning curve/ spending spree. We spent about $200 in one-time purchases (fencing, tools, etc.) and almost another $100 on our first-ever vet visit.

The Goats
In April, we had three goat kids born. Adi had two baby girls (does) and Alex had a little boy (buckling). Though the weather was cold for Adi's birth, all went well. You can read about Adi's birth here.

Alex kidded about a week or so later. She had her baby in the middle of the night, so I came out at 2 am to find her licking off the cutest brown buckling ever. It was warm that night, so with few interventions I let her do her thing and went back to sleep.

May will bring it's own learning curve. On my to-do list in a few weeks is "fixing" my buckling, and finishing up registration paperwork for each doeling. The girls will also have to be tattooed (like an ear piercing, for identification).

One of our last things to do is separate Barry the buck before we put Adi and Alex back in with the other goats. We've chosen to put Barry and another wether out back, and stake or tether them on pasture. We only have three paddocks right now, so it will be helpful if two of the goats are eating brush out back. I still have research to do on safe staking and tethering, but we did find a little goat shed for the Barry & friend to sleep in at night.

Believe it or not, Hubs got this cute little goat shed for free! It's a little worn down, but perfect for our purposes. The previous owners were getting a new shed, so they had Hubs haul this one away. So technically, we got paid to have this little shed. :) Now that's what I call frugal hobby farming.

The Chickens
Once again, the chickens are pulling their own weight, plus some. Spring has brought an abundance of eggs. In April I sold 22 dozen, and we kept more than enough small pullet eggs for ourselves. I have yet to clean out the rooster collection (if you know what I mean...). And again, no deaths this month. I couldn't be happier with my chickens!

We didn't buy any feed in April, for chickens or goats. I did find myself scraping the bottom of the barrel though, and for the last few days I resorted to shelling corn that I gleaned last year. May will definitely have some feed costs.

Bottom Line

Income: 
Eggs- $44.00
Total income: $44.00

Expenses:
ADGA Registration (farm name & membership)- $50.00
Tattoo kit & dehorner- $122.90 ($32 for the tattoo kit, $79 for the dehorner, plus shipping)
Cattle panels- $60.07
Vet visit- $94.88
Bottle nipples- $10.90 (These were out of stock EVERYWHERE, so we just ordered them online. I'd highly recommend buying them out of season so you don't have to pay the shipping charge.)
The Goatkeeper's Veterinary Book- $4.71
Total expenses: $343.46

Net profit: ($299.46)

Honestly, I don't expect our expenses to ever be this high again. The book, bottle nipples, cattle panels, dehorner and tattoo gun were all one-time purchases, as was part of my ADGA costs. The vet visit was kind of random (genetic disorder... seriously?), plus in the future I will probably take the goats IN to the vets, thus cutting any vet bills in half. 

I will have to factor in a $20 ADGA membership renewal for next year, as well as $10 each for any doelings born that I want to register. If I have one $50 vet visit per kidding season (unlikely, but just to be safe), I'll still come out ahead by selling the kids.

Goats About to Break Even
This month I'll start advertising my little doelings. The going rate for registered Nigerian Dwarf doelings seems to be anywhere from $250 to $500 each. I will probably sell mine for around $350 each. I'll also put Buffy (the boy) up for sale for $50-$100. If all goes well, selling the kids will cover ALL goat costs for the entire year ($224 feed, $300 April one-time costs, plus $226-$276 wiggle room). This means FREE milk for me, and no pressure to sell fiber or soaps right away.

Ultimately, this is what my little hobby farm is all about: free food, plus a little extra money to play around with. I am loving my goat/chicken/garden/orchard mix, and don't have plans to buy more animals... for the time being. ;)

-Bethany

Happy Monday! I hope all of you had a good weekend.

1. Cut some redbud branches from the tree in our yard. Redbud is a spring flowering ornamental tree. The buds only last a little while, but they are sure pretty! And guess what... redbud blossoms are edible!!! So you will probably see another frugal accomplishment next week, to the tune of eating redbud blossoms.

2. Sold five dozen eggs.

3. Sold one book on Amazon.

4. Line-dried several loads of laundry.

4. Went to some garage sales!!! The garage sales my mom and I went to last week were in a nicer community. They had a lot of home decorating stuff and other higher-quality home goods (like candles... won't you look at my beautiful candles!). Of course the prices were higher, as well. I didn't see anything priced at $0.10 or $0.05, like you do in some neighborhoods.

As you can see in the picture, I found a lot of like-new candles for $0.50 each. I also bought a pair of in-the-box binoculars for $5.00, a full bottle of sweet almond oil for $2.00 (that's an absolute STEAL), a vintage game that we really like, and two shadow boxes for $1.00 each. I had been wanting to buy or make some shadow boxes to display some of our travel souvenirs in, but never actually bought any. Good thing I waited! I also picked up a nice Kohls-brand sweater for myself for $0.50, some Christmas window candles that I had been looking for ($0.25 each), and some Wilton baking supplies for $0.50 each.

Garage sales are wonderful for stocking up on craft supplies. I found a bag of miscellaneous yarn for $0.50! The balls of yarn were small, but enough to make baby hats or other small items with. I like to use home-knitted items to give away as gifts. If you do the math, each usable ball of yarn cost about $0.10, which would mean that hat costs only a dime, plus a couple of hours knitting. Knitting is good to do when you are sitting in front of the TV or on a long car ride. Oftentimes I knit during the winter, or on cold rainy days. 

Lastly, I hit up all of the free boxes I could find. From depths of these boxes, I found quite a few items to put in my piano lesson "prize box", and the toy basket I keep for when little kids come over. Half-used coloring books, sticker sheets, markers, and those little punch-out valentines. Oh yes, and some fake grapes.

5. Planted my broccoli starts in a lasagna raised bed. Broccoli, green beans, sweet corn and bell peppers are going to be my main freezer vegetables this year. I used to not like broccoli, but it isn't too bad in casseroles. Plus, you know... FREE always tastes better. These starts were planted from seeds I saved two years ago. 

I used grass clippings from the first mowing of the year (yay!) to mulch the bed. This means that majority of my broccoli work is done for the summer. No more weeding, and precious little watering thanks to the mulch.

6. Planted onion sets. I finally got around to putting my onions in next to the garlic.

7. Other miscellaneous garden work: Hubs tilled up the area I'll be using for my market/fodder garden. We cleaned out the goat pen and put all of the manure in piles up by the garden to compost. I also planted another square of strawberries, mulched them with straw and also mulched the raspberries and garlic with straw. The "straw" was actually the refuse hay that my goats had scattered all over their pen instead of eating. I'm not worried about anything seeding itself in the garden, because what they didn't eat was essentially straw, with no leafy parts or seed stalks.

My New Adventure
This week we stopped by some friends of ours, and she was telling me about how she had used an email incentive and birthday freebie to get a free sandwich AND appetizer at the same restaurant for her husband's birthday (she is much better at coupons than I am). Later that day, I got to wondering if any of our local restaurants have deals like that. 

I made a spreadsheet listing every single restaurant in the surrounding communities. I had no clue that there were so many! Right now I'm in the process of scouting out any possible email incentives, coupons or birthday freebies. Most of the fast food restaurants have phone apps, but only some of these apps have coupons (the others are only for ordering food). The nicer restaurants (one so far in our local area) offered a free appetizer for being on their email list. Another restaurant had appetizers and drinks 50% off after 9:00 pm. One of my favorite Italian places has a "sub of the month", and you can get $1.00 off of that sub on a certain day of the week. All of this is impossible to remember, which is why I made a spreadsheet.

As you can imagine, there are dozens of restaurants that Hubs and I could go to on our date night. It will take at least a year to get through all of them. Instead of paying full price for the same meal at the same restaurant every week (yes, we've gotten into a rut!), with a little detective work I can strategically plan where and when to go, and what to order, based on coupons, specials and "deals of the month". Not only will it help us save a few dollars, but we'll get to try a different restaurant every week and using coupons will force us to try new foods. 

I still have some work to do, looking up websites and probably making a few phone calls. When I'm done with all of the research, I will probably share my spreadsheet in the monthly email newsletter. So don't forget to sign up!

Goals This Week:

1. Make granola for farmers market.
2. Transplant some lilac bushes.
3. Transplant spearmint and peppermint.