Everyday Frugal Accomplishments

Hi everyone! Last week followed the pattern of what has been a summer full of... well, almost everything besides new, exciting frugal accomplishments. Our short little Michigan summer is packed full of social events, with a few special trips scattered here and there. It's the prime time for gardening, not to mention the fact that most of Hubs' work happens during the warmer months. So, summer is not the best time to start new, exciting house projects or keep detailed track of things like how much we're spending on toilet paper. While I have kept receipts in my purse for the past few months, I've been a terrible record keeper when it comes to different spending categories.

2018 is also my first summer with a baby in tow. I love being a mama, but doing things with the baby on my back, front, or by my side takes quite a bit longer. You can still get stuff done; it just gets interrupted every 15 minutes with some need or distraction. Even getting ready in the morning takes longer, because I'm getting her ready as well.

 Even though I don't have anything fresh to share with you this week, I thought I'd write down a few things that I usually leave out of my list. The following tidbits are too mundane and boring to write about every week but are still great ways to save money.

1. Grocery shopping. Some weeks I'm super organized and come home with manager's specials, coupon freebies and sale items galore. Other weeks I take the easy route and do a Walmart grocery pickup. Both ways are frugal. The pickup order saves at least an hour of shopping time for me, plus Walmart's regular prices are (mostly) the same as Kroger's sale prices for things like meat or frozen vegetables. On the other hand, it's so easy to get free coupon deals with Kroger's digital coupon system. First, find a good couponing Youtube channel and spend five minutes watching a video every week. I watch the video on my computer, with the app open on my phone, to download coupons right away, so I don't forget. Then I watch the video again and physically write down the deals that I like on a piece of paper. So, I've spent 10 minutes (5 minutes if there are no good deals), plus an additional 5 minutes at the store looking for each free item. The time commitment may or may not be worth it to you.

2. Gardening. Every week I try to harvest some things or work out in the garden. If I'm honest, I've been a terrible gardener lately. Most of my garden time (about an hour per day) has been poured into weeding the large strawberry patch I planted to support my hobby farm activities. Even so, I've still been able to harvest a little this year; some raspberries here, cucumbers there, a head of lettuce or a bouquet of flowers now and then. For the amount of time and money (about $30.00, plus an average of 30 minutes per week, spread out over the spring and summer), I think gardening is still worth it. Just harvesting a few dollars' worth of products each week will make the investment pay off. Because I have an organic garden, it makes the produce even more valuable to me.  Every year, some plants are worth their weight in gold and others are a complete waste. But overall, it works out.

3. Menu planning. I have a permanent menu plan (based on the one in my book, The Housewife's Guide to Menu Planning) written out on the inside of a cupboard door.  I sprayed the door with chalkboard paint, then wrote the menu with a chalkboard marker. The chart has been so, so helpful for having meals ready, and ready on time. I've also tacked an ethnicity/culinary region onto each day, in case I'm feeling adventurous. For example, Monday is stir-fry day, but it's also Chinese day. So if I'm feeling lazy, I can throw together a stir-fry. If I'm feeling adventurous or have a little more time to cook, I can make something else that's Chinese- crab rangoons, for example, or General Tso's chicken. Have I ever made those things? No. But I've eaten them at the local Chinese buffet, and they're pretty tasty. Maybe someday.

4. Going for bike rides. We finally got a bike seat and helmet for Baby so that I can go on bike rides again! Biking is frugal because it's free exercise and entertainment. Exercise is a great way to prevent cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, dementia, and depression, among many other diseases and ailments. Riding a bike is one of those frugal things that makes sense in so many ways... like drinking water instead of pop, or not watching TV. Most of us would be better off doing it, regardless of how much money we have. Also, in some states, you can recycle cans that you find beside the road for money. During the last four years, I've consistently earned $40.00-$80.00 per year by collecting cans on regular walks and bike rides.

5. Using cloth diapers. First off, I want to say that cloth diapers can be a real money pit if done wrong (for example, if you stop buying Parent's Choice disposable diapers and buy a whole stash of brand new BumGenius reusable diapers... when your baby is already a year old). I feel like the estimated savings of cloth diapers are way overblown when compared to cheaper disposable brands like Luvs. That being said, once you find a laundry routine and diapering system that works for you, cloth becomes an easy way to save a few extra dollars per week. I'm currently saving about $25.00 per month on diapers (after the cost of extra laundry detergent and the occasional replacement diaper purchase). I spend less than an hour per week on laundering and stuffing diapers, so for the $5.00 savings it's still worth doing.  

6. Air-drying clothes. This saves about $0.75 per load. $0.75 times 52 weeks in a year is a $39.00 savings. I do about 2.5 loads per week, so we're on track to save $97.50 this year! Also, air drying also helps prolong the life of the clothes. 

7. Breastfeeding. Yes, this also takes time out of my day. And time out of my nights. But guess what? It's FREE food for Baby! That's a whole lot cheaper than formula, raw milk, goat's milk, or anything else I could buy for our baby. Plus, it's 100% healthy and perfect for our little dear. She's almost a year old now, so by my estimations we've saved about $1500.00 so far. I think I'll just keep doing it for as long as she cares to, because again... it's free. Plus it burns extra calories, and I still have about 5 lbs. of baby weight to lose. I think one of the best investments any mom-to-be can make is to find a good breastfeeding book at a thrift store and read the thing cover-to-cover. Once or twice before the baby is born, and then probably another couple times after baby arrives (in fits and starts, as needed). Anything by Le Leche League should be accurate and reliable. Regarding money saving priorities for new moms, this should be number one.

8. Free stuff. When we visited my sister last weekend, she gave me some hand-me-up clothes. Hand-me-ups are like hand-me-downs, but instead of being passed on to someone who is younger, the stuff is passed on to someone who is older. I'm pretty sure this is a great way to stay youthfully fashionable. Especially if you're someone like me, who has approximately zero fashion bones in my body.

Accepting free stuff is a good frugal habit to practice. If you're like me, though, you're a little too good at accepting free stuff and have to practice saying "no" now and then. If I have an excess of free stuff, I like to pass on the love to another person who might be able to benefit. Decluttering is also a frugal thing to do, because it frees up time and space that would otherwise devoted to caring for, moving around and storing "stuff" that doesn't get used.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my mundane weekly frugal tasks! What are some everyday, non-glamorous things you do to save money?

Til next time,
-Bethany

​Hi everyone! In place of frugal accomplishments, I bring you: 

How Well I Did Selling Strawberries Out By The Road.

First off, just a few notes. Generally, you can expect to harvest about one quart of strawberries for each plant that you have. Based on these calculations, I expected to earn about $1000.00 gross income. Unfortunately, we only harvested half that amount, whether by my error or because of something out of my control, like the weather. I'm doing my best to increase next year's harvest.

Total quarts picked: 155

Last year we planted 300 strawberry plants. Some of them died. Deer also defoliated quite a bit of the patch, which cut down on strawberries production. 

Gross income: $573.50

Expenses:
Boxes- $39.76
Pickers- $25.00
Total expenses: $64.76

(Note: I also spent $75.00 on weedkiller and $52.00 on plants last year. I used hobby farm money and income from picking at another patch to cover those costs. Hubs made the roadside stand last year for almost free. We repainted old signs, so those were free as well.)

Net income: $508.74


What I Liked About Selling Strawberries

What I really liked about having a strawberry stand was the fact that it was possible to do all of the work with Baby. I can plop her on a blanket right beside me with some toys, and she is (mostly) happy to be out in the patch while I pick and weed. Then I put her in a backpack, and we both carried flats out to the road and put up the signs every day. She also came with me to clean out the money box and take the signs down. 

The second thing I liked about selling strawberries was that I could sell every single quart that I had. I could have sold two or three times as much if I would've had it. I didn't waste time and money like I did, sometimes, selling baked goods or produce at a farmers market. Regarding hourly wage, I probably spent just as many hours to earn the same amount ($500.00) on either enterprise.

The third thing I liked was... I am not a people person. So I was thrilled not to spend all morning talking to customers like I had at the farmers market. I did speak to a few customers, but most were people I knew. Toward the end of the season, a lot more people started wanting to make orders (for berries I didn't have), which was a bit of a hassle. I think next year I will have an order system (payment and pickup) set up beforehand, so people don't wait until the last minute to order.


What I Didn't Like About Selling Strawberries

While it was possible to do every single task with Baby, I didn't actually DO every single task with Baby. During the picking season, I needed to be out there for an hour and a half straight- twice that if my pickers weren't there. Because of her napping, feeding and mood schedule, this was a challenge. At the time of picking, she was about eight months old- old enough to enjoy playing with toys, but not old enough to play with them for an hour and a half straight. I ended up using Hubs as a babysitter some of the days. Other days I had to pick in 20-minute increments and put berries on the stand quart by quart, which wasn't very efficient. But every additional $3.75 added to the bottom line!

We used the honor system for payment. This worked... mostly. Toward the end of the two-week picking season, I noticed that not all of the money was showing up in the cash box at the end of the day. Sometimes the money would mysteriously show up on a different day; other times it didn't. I thought maybe this was because people were having a hard time doing the math for multiple quarts of berries, so I put out a price sheet. Another possibility was that people were taking the berries as soon as they saw them (because of the high demand) and putting what cash they had in the cash box and meaning to pay the rest later (but forgetting to do so). My second theory would explain the random amounts of cash we found. On the last day of selling, we only got half the money. This was kind of depressing, on top of the fact that our harvest was small to begin with. But thankfully we didn't lose more than $30.00 altogether (BIL was also selling some berries). Also, some people overpaid by a quarter here and there, which also offset losses. The small loss was worth not having to "man the stand" every day.

As I mentioned before, though, taking prepaid orders would solve a lot of the money box confusion.


Concluding Thoughts

After a few weeks away from the patch (or at least, away from the stand), I'm looking forward to selling again next year. Unfortunately, the income in 2018 was not enough to cover the cost for my honeybees, but it is more than enough to cover the cost of gardening supplies and chicken feed ($18.00 per month, for my flock of 14 chickens). In the past, I've tried to make the hobby farm pay for itself by selling items from each animal/garden project. I had mixed success with this because some products were a lot more valuable than others. Some plants or animals saved more money than others. By selling the most valuable item (fruit) and using the other products (eggs, beans, lettuce) just for us, I can cover all of my costs plus have a little bit of pocket money left over. Not only does this make more sense financially, but I can focus all of my marketing/customer work on just one product, for a small window of time. That's a lot easier than trying to find customers for ten different products and spending 10 hours every week trying to sell those products.

Well, that's all for now! I haven't been doing regular hobby farm updates because there's not a whole lot to report on, with just the bees, chickens and garden. I've had chickens for years, so it's just the same old humdrum boring stuff. I don't feel entirely qualified to tell you about my beekeeping experiences, because I make new massive mistakes every time I go out there. I guess I could be doing garden updates, but I should really be WORKING in the garden instead of writing about working in the garden. So... yeah.

Til next time,
-Bethany

​Hi everybody! Again, not too many frugal accomplishments this week (or, at least not many that I remembered to write down!) but still some worth mentioning. 

1. Groceries: I went to Kroger this week and scored some deals. See below:

2. ​Garden: I harvested raspberries, string beans and snap peas from the garden. 

3. Garage sales: I went to some city-wide garage sales and picked up a few bargains. I spent just $9.05, plus a few dollars for gas to get there (it was less than seven miles away). Based on retail and/or thrift store value of the items I found, I saved over $50.00. In fact, we had just ordered a new $25.00 bike seat on Amazon, and I found one at a garage sale for $2.00! The garage sale seat is not as nice looking, but it will do the job. I plan on returning the new seat.

2. Cooking: I made ice cream this week with some Aldi heavy cream. Usually, I make custard-style ice cream with egg yolks and milk, but the cream was expiring soon and I wanted to use it up. I used the whole pint container of heavy cream, 1 cup milk, 1 TB vanilla extract, 3/4 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt. Total cost was $2.16, and the recipe made five cups, so the price per 1/2 cup serving was just under $0.22. That's more expensive than Great Value brand ice cream ($0.17 per serving), and only slightly cheaper than Breyer's ($0.25 per serving). So, it wasn't frugal. But it used up the heavy cream, plus it was some of the best homemade ice cream I've ever had!!

3. Garden: I've been harvesting red and black raspberries for the past week or so. I also collected mullein flowers and comfrey leaves to use in herbal remedies. My husband fixed a raccoon trap, so we can try and eliminate the predators that have been eating eggs and possibly chickens during the past week or so.

4. Cans: we picked up cans to recycle during several family walks. 

5. Reorganizing: Baby was starting to get into the books on my bookshelf, so I decided to move the contents of the two bottom shelves into our storage area and use them as storage for some of her toys. Since she was born, finding space for everything (extra furniture, outgrown toys or clothes, etc.) has been a bit of a struggle. I've already sold, donated or tossed a lot of our stuff, but I will probably do the same thing again in a few weeks.

Til next time,
-Bethany

1. ​Groceries: We spent $2.46 on groceries this week; a bag of freeze-dried baby food snacks at Walmart. I know, totes not frugal. But now that Baby is eating more solid foods, I thought it would be wise to keep some non-perishable food (that's not cereal or junk) in the car. I've been working on keeping our vehicle organized, which is easy NOT to do when you're going a lot of places and bringing lots of stuff to those places.

2. Cooking: I did better making actual meals this week instead of just eating cereal and junk food. Some of the meals we had were: lamb rice curry, chicken salad, hash, bagel sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, baked potatoes, ham soup and grilled chicken thighs. I also made a batch of kombucha (yay!!). I tried making pineapple juice in the Instant Pot, but it tasted too "cooked" to drink like juice.

3. Garden: I weeded a lot this week. Baby and I picked strawberries, mulberries and black raspberries for the freezer. I also cut some lettuce for salad and harvested some mullein for herbal remedies.

4. Thrifting: We went to the 50% off sale at Volunteers of America this week. I bought a baby monitor that didn't work ($1.50), a pair of jeans for myself ($1.60), and a swing-top bottle to use for kombucha ($0.75). I also bought some things for a Montessori weaning set that I'm working on (pictured above): two shot glasses ($0.50 each), two tray baskets ($1.50 and $1.25) and a small glass pitcher ($1.00).

5. Baby items: I sewed two bibs and two placemats for Baby Girl. I'm not quite finished with the placemats. I made each set of items with scrap fabric and bias tape that I already had. I used an old dishtowel on the back of the bibs to catch water spills. These will go with the weaning set. I hope to do a post about it when I'm finished with the placemats.

6. Computer desk setup: Last fall I threw out our old, broken hand-me-down computer desk to make room for a treadmill desk, which I thought would magically melt away all of the baby weight I had gained while pregnant. It didn't quite work like I thought it would. It was easy enough to walk while watching Youtube, but I couldn't multi-task well enough to write anything while walking. I ended up doing all of my writing on the kitchen table, while the poor treadmill sat unused. So, that was a waste of $80.00. This spring, I found myself more and more using my laptop on the kitchen table or couch, which is awful for posture, not to mention it clutters everything up.

We got rid of the treadmill, which turned my treadmill desk into a standing desk. I bought an external USB keyboard and mouse for $13.00, and Hubs built a second shelf out of free scrap lumber so that my hands can be at the proper 90-degree angle. Not only that, but I was able to point a set of external speakers into the kitchen/living room, so I can work and listen to audio without dragging the laptop over to the kitchen table. I love, love, love this setup. It makes writing so easy, especially with the external keyboard and mouse. I wish I would have gotten those two items years ago.

That's all, folks! I look forward to sharing more next week.
-Bethany