1. Line dried two loads of laundry.

2. Put 30 cloves of garlic and 4.7 lbs onions in cold storage. I figure that I saved $14.00 by growing the garlic and $2.04 by growing the onions. Both crops took up the same amount of space (half of a 4' x 4' square), but as you can see, the garlic was far more worth it. I think I will still try onions again, but next year I will use seeds (less initial cost) and take better care in mulching and weeding for a bigger crop.

3.Cleaned kidding pen and saved manure for the garden.

4. Did another TP experiment. We finally used up our fluffy 5-day-rolls of toilet paper. This time we bought the thin rolls of toilet paper. I marked the date in permanent marker on the inside of the tube, and put it on the holder. It took 12 days to go through a roll. Woah! My hunch was right that you use the same number of sheets regardless of how thick they are.

5. Picked up pop cans. One evening Hubs and I went for a walk. We took two grocery bags along, and came back with both of them full of cans.

6. Installed email pop-up on website. I found a free program called Mail Munch that you can use to install an email-collector pop-up on your website. The software works in conjunction with Mail Chimp. I really like the pop-up because it lets people know that I have an email newsletter (most of the time... last few months have been a little hectic!) but it only comes up once. If you don't subscribe, it won't come up again for six months.
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7. Got four free roosters. A neighbor had four roosters that she was keeping (from another neighbor) and asked if I wanted them. I said yes. As it turns out, one of the roosters is a silkie! This is a very special breed that people use for showing and pets. I am definitely going to keep the silkie for breeding purposes. The other three birds were also beautiful black/green roosters. They are all young, so I am thinking about replacing some of my old barred rock roosters with these new ones. As always, the boys who don't make the breeding cut will end up in our freezer.

8. Harvested tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and beans from the garden. 

9. Froze three quart bags of broccoli.

9. Canned 15+ pints of tomato sauce and juice, and five pints of applesauce.

10. Water-rooted tomato cuttings. Earlier in the week I went through and pruned some of the tomato plants (mostly so I could access the fruits... it was a jungle out there). I put the cuttings in water. After they take root, I will put the cuttings in a pot of soil and the tomatoes will keep growing. When it gets too cold out, I will bring the pots inside until they stop growing (it is too cold with not enough light in the back room when it gets to be November or so). Then I will pick the green tomatoes, and they will ripen on their own in a few weeks. In this way, we will be able to have fresh tomatoes in November. I did this on accident last year, and it worked quite well.

11. Dried peppers for spice, and froze one quart bag of peppers for stir-fry/pizza. I had intended to freeze ALL of the peppers, but then I realized that the banana peppers were quite spicy. So I took some of them and dried them for spice.

12.Got a cookbook, vintage table linens, shirt and jeans from free garage sale. On Friday a local church was holding a "free" garage sale, where you bring a bag and take whatever you want. I went on the second day, but there was still some stuff left. I brought home a shirt and jeans for myself, a crock pot cookbook, some beautiful vintage table linens, and a pair of jeans for Hubs. I have a really hard time finding his size (32/32) at thrift shops or garage sales, so we normally buy Hubs' jeans brand new. I think his jeans were my best find.

13. Canned 9 half-pints and 6 pints of grape jelly. A friend of ours brought us a whole grocery bag full of Concord grapes that they weren't going to use, so I decided to make some jelly! It was my first time making grape jelly from real fruit, but it was actually easier than I thought it would be. I miscounted the sugar on the first batch, which turned out a little runny, but the second batch worked out great.

Jelly is a very frugal thing to make if you have free fruit. My cost for ingredients (sugar and discount pectin) was only about $0.10 per half-pint. For gifts and farmers market, I used new jars, lids and rings which brought the price per jar to about $0.75 each. Even with the added cost, it is still a really cheap gift for housewarming/thank you/birthday/etc., and I can make a 75%+ profit on each jar at the market. If there is time, I would like to make some more jelly with foraged fruit.

14. Built two new raised beds. This now completes my 12-square raised bed garden!! Hubs used scrap lumber and tools from his shop to build the beds, and I helped. One of the beds will have strawberries, and the other will hold vegetables (we put it where the onions and garlic were planted this year). 

Before putting the frames in place, I put down some cardboard to deter weeds. Later this fall, I'll layer grass clippings, manure and dead leaves in the beds to make compost.


Goals for This Week:

I will spend a lot of this week preparing for the farmers market. I'll also continue putting up garden vegetables, working on my book, and doing dishes. :)

Til next time,
​-Bethany

Hello friends and homemakers! Recently I have been doing a lot of research and a lot of writing for my book about how to eat for $10.00 (or less) per week. I was working on a chapter about Walmart, and I thought, "This is something everyone should know, whether they read my book or not."

 My husband and I are very loyal Walmart Supercenter shoppers. There are many reasons why we shop there, but mostly because the savings are HUGE. I have friends who don’t shop at Walmart for moral or political reasons, which I think is sad because a lot of those friends could really use the extra money. If you are anti-Walmart, I challenge you to carefully scrutinize your priorities and ask if it is really your conscience, of if it is just ego that is keeping you from Walmart.
 
For some reason, society has demonized Walmart in particular, but it is okay to shop at other large chain stores like Kroger or Meijer. Are we really so naïve to think that the quality of bread at Kroger is better than the bread at Walmart? Especially when both stores carry many of the same brands? Do we really think that Kroger employees have a better life stocking shelves than Walmart employees stocking shelves? It all depends on the local people that are working there as staff. I have been treated worse by staff at our local Kroger than at Walmart. It’s not about the store- it’s about the staff. As for the “poor” hourly wage and benefits for Walmart workers, I would venture to say that Walmart benefits are comparable to those of other large chain stores.

Unless you are completely self-sufficient and live off the land, don’t think you are a better moral person by shopping at a “local” large chain grocery store instead of Walmart. That is like eating at Burger King instead of McDonalds. 

Now that we have all excuses removed, I can talk about why I grocery shop at Walmart almost 100% of the time. Keep in mind that a majority of our food is produced at home, so we’re only buying a few items at Walmart.

1. You can use gift cards there. My husband spends thousands of dollars per month on inventory for his small business. His credit card company offers 1-2% cash back, so he uses this to get Walmart gift cards. A few times per year he will give me 2-3 $100 gift cards, and I use these to buy groceries, gift items and anything else we might need. I realize that most people shouldn’t be spending thousands of dollars every month on credit cards, but there are other programs that offer gift cards, and cards are often given away as prizes or all-purpose gifts. After we got married, Hubs and I had a handful of Walmart gift cards to use on whatever we wanted. I liked these cards better than the Kohls or even Sears cards because 1) we could buy MORE stuff (because it was cheaper) and 2) we could buy anything from discount bread to plants for the garden. We've also received Walmart gift cards for random prizes, holiday gifts, and applying for a Walmart credit card (that we actually never used... Hubs just did it to get the gift card). Larger chain grocery stores are more likely to have gift cards in circulation than smaller mom-and-pop stores.

Gift cards (received as gifts OR through rewards programs) are effectually tax-free income. This saves another 10-30% depending on your tax bracket.  

2. Walmart has everything. Walmart Supercenters are a one-stop shop, which saves time and saves money spent on gas. It is statistically proven that the more time you spend shopping, the more money you spend.

3. Price matching. Walmart will price match other stores. In fact, they even have a “Savings Catcher” app that will scan your receipts and give you a rebate if any items you have bought have lower prices at other stores. This means that you can check all of your local adds at home, and if the same brand is being sold at Walmart, you can buy it at Walmart instead of making a separate trip to the other store, while still getting the same deal.

4. Lower prices. It's true- a rug at Walmart costs less than a rug at Kohls or JC Penney or a local craft show. It may or may not last as long, but a Walmart rug is definitely cheaper.

If you could save $1000 per year by shopping at Walmart, and give that $1000 to an anti-abortion charity, wouldn’t it outweigh the $10.00 of your yearly spending that might go to support abortion? I can understand why someone would feel bad for giving Planned Parenthood even $10.00, but nobody feels bad for sitting on their hands and NOT supporting local pro-life programs or donating their money to help stop human trafficking. I think that is silly. Likewise, if shopping at Walmart could help you quit your job to become a stay-at-home mom to your baby, wouldn’t that be more important than buying $5.00 bread at the farmers market, to support a local baker who bought all of HER ingredients at Walmart?

I am sure that some of our friends think my husband and I are low-class sell-outs because we only shop at Walmart*. However, I don’t really care. Saving money at Walmart helps us to give to charity, buy local where it counts (not necessarily at our local chain grocery stores, but from individuals) and live a life that we both absolutely love. Thank you, Walmart.

What are your thoughts about Walmart? I welcome any opposing views here, especially if they include personal experience or factual proof to back them up.

* We do actually shop at other stores, but it is infrequently.

Hello everyone! I've had a full and busy week that I'm excited to tell you about.

1. Sold 1 dozen eggs.

2. Sold a used book on Amazon.

3. Went to the bent 'n' dent. I spent just over $35.00 this time around. I think I did a better job of buying staples last week instead of just going crazy with junk food or processed food that we don't need. Here is a breakdown of what I bought:

Nuts (cashews & almonds)- $10.22
Pasta- $6.00
Junk food (candy, chips, sweets, etc.)- $6.25
Cereal- $3.00
Spices- $2.25
Dessert mixes- $2.00
Tea- $1.25
Rice & Beans- $1.00
Evaporated milk- $0.85
Ramen noodles- $0.75
Chocolate chips- $0.75
Vinegar- $0.50

Some of my best deals were actually the nuts ($2.00-$3.00/lb.), pasta ($0.75/lb.), rice ($0.25/lb.) and black beans ($0.50/lb.), which are healthier items we may have bough anyway. I figure that 30% of my purchases were on unneeded items that we wouldn't have bought, for example: junk food, cereal, dessert mixes, ramen noodles, etc. While I can still use these items, the fact is that I spent $10.00 on things that might have been a good deal, but we ultimately didn't need. However, I believe that the deals I found on staple items probably outweighed the extra I spent. In the future, my goal is to spend a higher percentage on things that I would buy anyway, and a lower percentage on "treats". Though I think it is still a lot of fun to buy junk food at the bent 'n' dent.

4. Canned 14 pints of applesauce. Our trees didn't produce well this year, so I took the opportunity to get some free "drop" apples from a friend.

5. Canned 9 pints of tomato sauce/pulp. After processing the tomatoes, I let the juice sit overnight in the fridge so the pulp and water would separate. Then I ladled the pulp off of the top of the pot to can. In previous years I have flavored the pulp to use as enchilada sauce, spaghetti sauce, etc. However, when I go to use these flavored sauces, I still add more spices anyway. So this year I've decided to can unflavored sauce. It is a lot easier during this hectic season of canning, plus it will be more versatile this winter.

6. Bought two mini orchids at Home Depot on sale for $3.00 each. After years of unsuccessfully keeping orchids, I believe I've found a method to keep them alive and growing. Every Thursday, I run water through each pot until the growing medium is saturated. Then I sit the pots in the sink to let the water drain completely. This had nurtured one of my two full size orchids back to life (the leaves were turning brown and cracking off, and the roots were rotting), and it has kept my newer orchid alive and producing new growth. 

I purchased the mini orchids to grow my collection of winter flowers. Right now I have four orchids and two amaryllis bulbs that I bought after the Christmas season. My hope is to store the bulbs in the fridge during the fall months, and force them before Christmas. And yes, I hope to get the orchids blooming again as well.
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7. Made cheese.

8. We ate several meals of leftovers this week. Lately if I make way to much of a certain meal, I will freeze what is left and serve it at a later meal. Because there are only two of us, it is not hard for me to cook too much. Before I started freezing leftovers, I would just put them in the fridge and hope they would get eaten before they went bad (probably half of the time). If they did get eaten, usually I just served it as a side. Hubs wouldn't touch the leftovers, which meant my meal was leftovers and his was the fresh Cannfood.

When it is primarily leftovers being served, one has no choice but to eat them. However, since they have been frozen, they are almost as fresh as they were when we ate them the week (or two weeks) prior, so you can't really tell that they are leftovers. Using these "frozen dinners" saves money because there is less waste, but more than that it saves a lot of time and bother for me.

Goals for Next Week

1. Make more applesauce & tomato sauce.
2. Clean out pantry.
3. Make soap.

My Kindle Story

I have been a Kindle Paperwhite owner for three years. When I bought the Kindle, it was with the intention of saving money on 1) newly released books, and 2) reference books or text books. As you probably know, most ebooks on Amazon have a top price of $9.99. Oftentimes, this is cheaper than buying a paperback or hardcover version.

One of the first ebooks I bought was Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel. At the time, I was burnt out by using the library and wanted to just buy the book. I looked all over for a cheap used copy (even on sites like Paperback Swap which I had been using to get rid of books not worth enough to sell on Amazon), but even the used copies  were only a few dollars cheaper than the list price of $26.97 (+$3.99 for shipping).

After searching the used market for a little while, I noticed that the ebook price was only $9.99. Too bad I didn't have a Kindle! I could be saving 50% on this book. What if I wanted to buy more books, and saved $10.00 or more every time I bought one? The savings alone might cover the cost of purchasing a Kindle.

A few days later, I discovered and downloaded Amazon's free desktop Kindle app. I bought the book I had been looking at, and decided that I liked reading ebooks. When I had been reading ebooks on my desktop for almost a year, I started to want a Kindle. After some research and asking around, I chose to buy the Kindle Paperwhite. It cost about $119.00 at the time.

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Was My Kindle Worth the Investment?

If I saved $10.00 for every book I bought on the Kindle, it would pay itself off after 11 books. Though I certainly purchased 11 books within a year, it's doubtful if I truly saved money by purchasing ebooks, let alone the Kindle. In 2012 I spent $99.63 on ebooks. In June of 2013 I bought the Kindle device, and spent $119.21 that year on ebooks. Woah! I realized then how easy it was to spend money on ebooks, and decided to change my book buying strategy. During the last three years I've only spent $41.62... an average of $13.87 per year on Kindle books.

Altogether, in the past four years I've spent $260.46 on ebooks (most of which I probably could have checked out at the library), in addition to the $119.00 Kindle itself. One has to wonder if spending $380.00 on non-essentials is really an investment.

The reason that I don't think Kindles are a good investment is because, after you buy them, ebooks have no value. You cannot resell an ebook. You cannot even lend it to a friend. So of the $260.46 that I spent on ebooks, I will not have a single dollar of that come back to me. You can resell the Kindle, but only at half the price you paid for it. 


A Better "Investment"

Four years later, I still enjoy using my Kindle but it is much slower than it used to be. I see now that anyone in the market for a Kindle Paperwhite can get one on Ebay for $50.00. And there is one more new development that might influence your decision to buy a Kindle.

Along with the free desktop app, Amazon offers an app for your smart phone. This apph essentially turns your phone into a Kindle; backlight, adjustable letter sizing, highlighting and all. The Kindle app also offers social media sharing, which my old Kindle Paperwhite does not (I'm not sure if the new ones have been updated). 

In addition to being completely free, the Kindle phone app allows you to take your books with you anywhere without carrying another device in your purse. And yes, I can turn the pages a lot faster on my phone than on my actual Kindle device.


How to Get the Most Out of Your Kindle

Whether you have an actual e-reader or just the phone app, there are ways to get the benefits of reading ebooks without spending $260.00 on things that have no value after you've bought them. Here are some of my favorite frugal Kindle hacks.

1. Only buy free books. Sometimes Amazon authors will run a promotion on their book and offer it for free for one day only. I have done this before as an author. Every day there are new free ebooks available. You may be able to download several high-quality books this way.

There are also hundreds of free books out there that are not high-quality, but still worth reading. Some books like this that I have bought include cook books, exercise books, or short stories.

Any book written before 1923 is in the public domain. Most public domain works are available for free on Amazon. This includes everything from great classics and technical writings to any obscure old book you might find at an antique shop. When I was a kid, we had an old book about the "Galveston Horror", a hurricane that flattened the city of Galveston, TX in 1900. Sure enough, just the other day I found the exact same book on Amazon Kindle for free. There is no reason to buy these old books and keep them around (especially if it is a one-time read) when you can get a free, legible, non-fragile and no-pages-missing copy on your phone.

Lastly, any .epub file can be loaded onto your Kindle/app and read as an ebook. These files can come from anywhere, not just the Kindle store. Recently I found some historical files from the Michigan Pioneer Society to use for some research I've been doing. Instead of spending hours in front of the computer, I simply downloaded the .epub file onto my Kindle. Now I can do my research in bed, in the car, or outside on a warm summer day.

2. Use the Kindle for its translation capabilities. You will have to purchase a Spanish (or whatever language you are learning) dictionary, but after that you can download free Spanish books to practice with. This is a whole lot easier than reading a physical Spanish book and having to look up every word you don't know in a physical Spanish dictionary.


Alternatives to Buying Ebooks

Nowadays, if there is a book I want to read that I can't find for free, I will usually get it from my local library. Most of the books I like are not stocked at our local library, but I can order them through the interloan system. For every one book I get via interloan, I try to check out two books off the shelves at our library. The most efficient way to get your reading done would be to ONLY order interloan books and not mess around with checking out books you didn't plan on reading in the first place. However, I tried that with my hometown  library several years ago and it really ticked off one of the librarians. After receiving several rude comments from her (one that I actually confronted her about), I got discouraged and just started buying books I wanted instead. 

This time around, I am really trying to have a good relationship with our local librarian. I am not sure if the interloan books are actually more work, or if the rude librarian just needed someone to blame for her disappointing life. Whatever the case, not using the library cost me literally hundreds of dollars. So I just thought I'd throw that caution out there to anyone who has just discovered the interloan system and is going crazy ordering all sorts of books. Keep the librarians happy.

If there is a newer release that the interloan library does not have, I purchase a physical copy from Amazon. Though it will probably lose some value by the time I am done with it, the book will not lose ALL of its value. I will still be able to resell it, or at least give it away to a friend.

Conclusion

Though I positioned this as an ROI article, the reality is that buying a Kindle is not an investment like one might think. Technology has developed to the point where this "investment" has become a toy for reading pleasure. A better investment is to download the Kindle app on your cell phone for free books, and to purchase physical books that actually have resale value. To be fair, I still do pay money for a select number of Kindle books every year, but those are usually very niche topic books by independent authors. Last year, for example, I purchased Early Retirement Extreme by a blogger named Jacob Lund Fisker. It was not available through the interloan system, and the Kindle book was $9.00 cheaper than the paperback, after the cost of shipping. This year I purchased an ebook when we were on vacation. I had lots of time to read, but there was not a library where we were staying, and I wanted to read the book before we left (it was about the history of banana plantations... not something that would be as interesting when I got home).

Buying books can get complicated when there are so many resources available. However, when we buy the right books from the right place (or get them for FREE from the right place), spending can be cut to almost nothing. And books sure provide a great return on an investment of almost nothing!

Til next time, 
-Bethany

Hello everyone! This week was a little short on frugal accomplishments, but I thought I'd share anyway.

1. Harvested kale, tomatoes, broccoli and green beans from the garden.

2. Made feta cheese. Normally I just make soft cheese with milk and vinegar, but I had some extra time this week and thought I'd try something different. The feta took longer to make and required more ingredients (rennet & cheese culture), but it turned out well.

3. Line dried two loads of laundry. It started raining the day I did my laundry, so I got to try out my garage sale drying rack. It worked very well for small things like socks, handkerchiefs and cloth napkins, which take a lot of time to hang out on the line with clothespins. Indoors I didn't have to worry about a breeze, so I just laid each sock over the dowel instead of having to pin it down.

4. Separated spices from a jar of mulling mix. Last spring I found a couple jars of mulling mix (whole cloves, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon bark, lemon & orange peels) for $1.50 each at a bent 'n' dent store. I saved one of the jars to use with cider this fall, but with the other jar I dumped out and separated all of the contents. Whole spices can be expensive to buy in individual jars. To get a small amount of each spice in a single jar, for less-than-bulk price, was a great deal. I don't know what I'll use the allspice, cloves or nutmeg for yet, but the bark and peels will be used for making my own tea blends.

5. Bought cardamom in bulk. Normally I would not buy cardamom, which is an expensive Indian spice. If you just go to Walmart and buy a container, it can often cost between $4.00-$5.00 an ounce. I paid $2.13/oz. for my bulk spice, and got just enough to fill up one of the glass spice containers that I had saved to reuse.

I think spices and herbs are one of the best investments to make when you are trying to cook frugally. They can make boring ingredients taste really good. Some of the best restaurants I know of do not necessarily serve expensive cuts of meat or selections of produce. They are cooking potatoes and chicken like we normal housewives are, but it tastes SO good because they know how to bring out the best in food, using spices and mixing flavors.

5. Used a coupon. Earlier in the week, Tractor Supply sent out a flyer with two coupons. I cut out the coupons and put them in my purse. On our way to church, Hubs remembered he had to get something there. "I have a coupon!" I exclaimed. So we saved 10% on purchases that would have been made anyway.

6. Froze some extra water bottles. I have been trying to think of something to do with the cheap plastic water bottles that we pick up here and there. They are not sturdy enough to use regularly, but still have some life left in them. At the same time, I was trying to clean out our freezer. I thought it would be a good idea to put some temporary items in the freezer to help it run more efficiently (a full freezer is more efficient than one that is half empty). Freezing plastic water bottles does several things. 1) It reuses the water bottle, 2) it fills up the freezer, 3) we can grab some on the way out to the car; when we are thirsty they will be melted but still cold, and 4) I can use them as ice packs in coolers.

One day this week, Hubs had an on-site job and he took one of the bottles of frozen water. He drank it with his lunch and said it was just perfect by the time he got to it.

On Sunday, we went grocery shopping before church. I brought a small cooler along, with a frozen water bottle inside. The bottle kept our yogurt and sour cream well chilled until we got home around 3:30 pm.

7. Made a sticker chart for my piano students. Every so often, I like to take some of the money I earn from teaching and reinvest it into incentives (i.e. prizes) for the students. The sticker chart will help reward them more regularly and provide motivation to practice. This will make the lessons more effective.

Goals for Next Week

It's hard to believe  that August is halfway through already. However, I have been enjoying the last several weeks, having time to do some extra cleaning, writing, helping Hubs and doing other not-necessarily-frugal things. This week I look forward to canning, more writing and perhaps making some more soap.

1. Can tomatoes.
2. Finish tanning hide.
3. Make one batch of soap.

I think it's more than time I did a summer update here... if I waited much longer, it would be my fall update!

Currently Harvesting... Not Too Much

In the last few weeks, I've slowly been harvesting green beans, broccoli, summer squash and peppers.

Though the garden is twice as big as it was last year, 25% of it is flowers, and 25% is pumpkins/squash/sweet corn. The pumpkins and squash are not ready yet, and the sweet corn was a total bummer. I didn't water it enough earlier this summer, and then the raccoons got what was left.

My bed of carrots produced exactly two carrots, and the lettuce bed has gone to seed.

In the next month or so, I'll start harvesting tomatoes and peppers, which are two of my major crops. I would like to get another crop of carrots in, but we'll see if that happens.

Out of my one row of kale, two or three plants spouted. Those that did sprout are doing well.

Herbs: Holding Steady

Out of the three lavender plants I started this spring, one has survived and is doing well. It took FOREVER to get established, though. I've come to realize that lavender plants started from seed will require a year to just get started. Right now my home-grown lavender plant is about 2/3 the size of the lavender plant that I bought. 

In addition to lavender, my rosemary plant is holding steady and there is a very small patch of thyme out there, as well. The mints I transplanted this spring absolutely took off in growth. Next year I will plant an entire bed of mints instead of just a few square feet. That will be my "tea garden".

Flowers: A Big Disappointment

As I mentioned before, I planted 1/4th of my garden in flowers: sweet peas, delphiniums, glads, freesias, pumpkin-on-a-stick, sunflowers, and many others. The "many others" did not even come up, probably because weeds choked them out. The sunflowers and glads did decently well. However, between the frost and bugs, only a small percentage of the pumpkin-on-a-stick and delphinium plants survived to maturity. None of the freesias even came up, which was a disappointment because they were rather expensive. After babying them for months, the sweet peas are finally starting to flower and they are beautiful. But like the other flowers, only a few plants are left.
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It looks like my pumpkin-on-a-stick plants have overcome the bugs at last. I was wondering if I'd have more than a few stems to use, but it looks like most of my row will produce some stalks. I look forward to to using them in flower arrangements (or selling at the farmers market!) this fall.

Mistakes & Changes for Next Year

1. Planted too early. I planted many things in mid-late April. Most of them did not actually GROW until May, when it warmed up. I decided that next year I'll wait until May 1st to plant anything. This means that I'll start my transplants a month later.

2. Tomato & pepper transplants died. Something happened to almost all of my tomato seedlings, to where I planted them in the raised and then they withered and died. About 3/4 of my pepper plants froze. So I ended up purchasing tomato plants. They were not all that expensive, and have done very well. Next year I am going to buy at least tomato plants, possibly pepper plants as well, and focus my seed starting efforts on flowers and herbs, which are more expensive to buy.

3. Not enough watering. In June we experienced a small drought, which permanently stunted my corn. I didn't start watering the entire garden (I was just using a watering can on certain plants) until after that, because I had procrastinated putting a splitter on the hose and hooking up my own sprinkler. Next year the sprinkler/watering system will be all ready to go.

4. Too many weeds in the row garden. I knew that would happen, because... row garden. The tiller and I don't get along. I did have Hubs till once or twice, but the tiller tilled under all of my mulch (primary weed defense) and I did not have enough mulch to put any more on. So tilling is really not an option if I want a weed-free garden. Next year if I do a row garden, I will put mulch between the plants and plastic between the rows.

5. Bug infestations. I had major problems with striped cucumber beetles, blister beetles, rose beetles and grasshoppers. I'm not sure how to take care of the grasshoppers, except perhaps fencing in the garden and throwing a duck or chicken in there. However, I found some traps and did some hand-picking of the bugs (much easier when there are no weeds, which was problem number 1) and for the most part we pulled through.

6. Raccoon infestations. So the coons got my corn... or whatever there was of it. Only thing I can think of to stop that is fencing in the garden or trapping the coons.

7. Low germination rate for herbs. I mistakenly transplanted individual thyme and oregano seedlings, and later realized that the thyme plants you buy are actually clumps of plants, not one plant like lavender or rosemary. Speaking of those two herbs, I probably had three or four of each germinate, but only a single plant (lavender) survived to maturity. Next year I will do some research on germinating those two herbs (especially lavender) and also basil (only one plant survived to maturity).

8. Mulched the strawberries with straw. That was a disaster. Weeds all over the place! Next year I am just going to use grass like I do for everything else.

Some things I think we did right this year were 1) utilizing more raised beds. They were half of the garden, but only 10% of the work. 2) Weed whacked between the raised beds. It took 15 minutes every 3-4 weeks, and looked great compared to bare dirt or even mulch. 3) Adding flowers. Even though the flowers don't feed us and I didn't have enough to sell at the farmer's market, they kept me interested in the garden and were beautiful to look at. I think growing flowers (especially from seed) for vase arrangements can stretch your home decorating budget a long way.

Til next time,
-Bethany

This week I have a number of frugal accomplishments to share, as well as some interesting tidbits I discovered.

1. Picked broccoli, green beans, and two carrots from the garden. For some reason I did not have any carrots germinate this year... or so I thought. While I was weeding I pulled up two medium-sized ones.

2. Sold three dozen eggs. 

3. Saved free mealworms. When I was cleaning out the back room, I discovered that mealworms had decided to make a meal of a hide that I started working on last fall. Of course I was absolutely disgusted, but wasn't about to throw out the hide I'd spent so much time on. 

As I moved the hide out onto the porch, I remembered some Youtube videos I watched about mealworm farming. In order to give chickens extra protein, some people actually grow mealworms. Gross, I know, but here I had FREE mealworms at my disposal, and chickens that could eat them. So I swept the mealworms off of the hide and put them into this little home I made for them.

The farm is just a few handfuls of oatmeal for food, some carrot peelings for moisture/water, and some paper for the worms to hide under. I put it in a dark place in the back room, with holes screwed into the lid for ventilation.

4. Collected rose beetles for my chickens.

5. Froze baked beans. We had been given a 1-gallon bag of baked beans after a family event, so I served some for lunch one day, and froze the rest in 1-quart containers.

6. Line dried one load of laundry.

7. Used a BOGO (buy one get one free/% off) coupon. Later during the week we were in town, early for a church event. Nobody was there, and it was SUPER hot, so we decided to buy a smoothie at the local coffee shop. It just so happened that I had a buy-1-get-1-free coupon for medium or large drinks in my purse. It was cheaper for us to buy medium drinks with a coupon than get two small ones, so we used the coupon.

8. Cleaned out the freezer. Ever since reading the Extreme Cooling guest post last week, I've been trying to use less freezer and fridge space. We aren't planning on downsizing the fridge yet, but I've realized how much food gets wasted because it gets lost in there.

9. Got some new poultry for the hobby farm! We have had a lot of chicken deaths on the farm lately, so I got five new Barred Rock hens from my brother. He has an incubator, so in exchange for fertilized eggs, he gives me some of the chicks. I got three of the five chicks for free this time, and bought two additional chicks from him. They are not really chicks anymore... more like teenage chickens.

I asked him for Barred Rocks because they are good layers, but also have some meat on them if we decide to butcher them in a few years.

10. Used Ibotta and Checkout 51 rebates to get a free banana and three free carrots.

11. Bought reduced "ripe" bananas for $0.42/lb. I normally don't buy fruit at all (we produce enough here on the property), but bananas and pineapple are exceptions that I buy when they go on sale. Bananas are very sweet, so I can use them to replace sugar in baking or smoothies/ice cream.

After I brought the bananas home, I thought of something. If I was paying by the pound for bananas, how much of my money was paying for the peel??

I weighed a banana with and without the peel, and discovered that 38% of the weight of the banana was peel. This meant that the actual banana fruit cost $0.68/lb. If you are someone who buys fruit based on a price list (comparing different fruits by price per pound), this is a good thing to know. Fruits like strawberries or apples are going to have a lot less waste than bananas, pomegranates or even oranges.

Update on Photo Email Lists- Free Photos Aren't Free

Last week one of my goals was to sign up for a few different email lists (Walmart photo, Shutterfly, Snapfish, etc.). I did sign up for Shutterfly emails, and to my surprise they offered me 50 free prints, a free magnet and free set of address labels! Excited, I uploaded some photos I wanted to print and designed a magnet. I thought I could use the photos to make a photo book to have at my farmers market stand. However, when I saw the shipping charges ($3.99 for the magnet and $3.99 for the photos), I realized that my free photos weren't free. No way was I paying $10.00+ to ship a bunch of stuff I didn't need. 

When I bought the photo book last week, it was something that I actually wanted and was willing to pay for. Hubs really liked it! What I love about photo books is that you design them once, print them and then you are done. No more work. With my "free" photos, I would've had to print the pictures, and THEN find or buy a photo album, rearrange and label all of the photos. That's too much work for something I didn't even want until it was offered to me. 

I think all frugal people should watch out for "deals" like this. I see a lot of ladies (guys too, but they buy different stuff) buying things like home decor, crafting supplies, or other non-essentials just because they are on sale. Because the items aren't needed, they sit in a closet and depreciate until someone sells them at a garage sale. Sometimes I take free stuff if I think I can find a use for it (hoarders will be hoarders!), but I try not to PAY for something I won't use and wasn't looking for in the first place. If I spent $10.00 every week on "free" offers, I'd spend $520.00 per year that could have been spent on something useful and needed.

Goals for Next Week
1. Sign up for another email list.
2. Look for tanning solution in local stores.
3. Continue cleaning out the fridge/freezer.

Extreme Cooling: Refrigeration 

The refrigerator is one of the most energy-consuming appliances in the home because it runs day and night. Several months ago, I have stumbled upon an extreme way to save on electricity consumption from my refrigerator. 

One day, I thought the fridge was cycling more than normal. I hate to hear the fridge cycle; I envision money rolling away from me. I thought maybe the coils needed cleaning.  But the fridge is heavy and has pre-rollers on the bottom.  It would have to wait for my husband to get home.  It was early in the day, and it would be 8 hours before he got home and it Would. Not. Stop. Running.  I decided I would unplug it. There, it stopped.  Now what? I couldn’t just leave it unplugged.  There was food in there!

 I did have that little dorm-size fridge out in the garage I could temporarily use.

​ But how would it all fit?  I took everything out of the fridge and examined the contents on my counter.  Was there anything that did not have to be refrigerated?  How much could we eat and how quickly? I researched every item on my counter (aside from the obvious) to see if it needed to be refrigerated. Guess what?  There were many items on the list that we commonly refrigerate, but don’t have to!

 I learned that onions, potatoes, garlic, vinegar and even soy sauce do not have to be refrigerated.  Maybe you knew this, but I didn’t.  Cabbage, if whole and wrapped does not have to be refrigerated.  I was buying cabbage at the store one day and I noticed that the store just had it shelved with other non- refrigerated vegetables.  Anything that the store is not refrigerating, you not have to refrigerate. Some things do need to be refrigerated after opening, but not all.  I tried not refrigerating carrots (the kind with the tops), but they became limp real fast. Then I remembered that they were stored in the refrigerated section of the store, so back into the fridge they went. 

I got out some pretty baskets and put my non-refrigerated vegetables in them on the shelf. 

I prepared leftovers that day for lunch, and I planned a soup for supper.  I froze some leftovers* I knew would not fit and that we could not eat that day.  And finally, I got everything to fit in 4.5 cubic feet, down from my original 15 cubic feet.

Small Fridge vs. Large Fridge

Then, I plugged in my kill-a-watt and waited 24 hours to read it. The results were good. This new fridge would only cost $3.00 per month to run, saving me $9.00 a month. How long could I make this last? I still hadn’t cleaned those coils in the big fridge.

Well it’s been a least three months and guess what?  I’m still operating out of the little fridge! I think there are several reasons it works for us.  For one, we rarely have leftovers.  If so, it’s usually only a serving or two. Also, we cook from scratch most of the time.  I’m using food from my pantry and freezer to prepare most of our meals.   

What I like the best about my small fridge is I know exactly…all the time…what is in my fridge.  No lost anything.  We have very little waste.  Also, space is so precious that I use it well.  This morning I needed to move more eggs into my little fridge but they wouldn’t fit.  I had un-thawed some peaches from the freezer and had some leftovers (surprise), jars of salsa, broth and spaghetti sauce that were taking up room.  I needed to use up some food to get my eggs to fit.

Boy #3 suggested and started working on peach pancakes for breakfast.  Then, I took the ½ jar of spaghetti sauce, 1 ½ of broth, ¼ jar of salsa and dumped them into my pressure cooker.  I added one can of corn, ½ onion and 6 potatoes and it was the best soup ever.  I used ¼ of the milk for pancakes, so I took out the gallon jug and put the milk in quart jars which fit better.  Viola! My eggs now fit.

I do make more trips to the store.  I actually like to go to the store and it is close to my home.  Going more often I find more marked down produce (even organic) and sales.  And if I have to use the produce right away its fine with me. I use it or preserve it (canning, dehydrating or freezing.)  I know most people spend more money when they go to the store more often, but not me.  I’ve tracked my expenses and the opposite is true.  Shopping only once or twice a month would cost us more.

I also keep a small cooler in the kitchen for extra items, should I have them.  One rubbermaid container of ice in my cooler will keep things cool until I use them or free up space in my little fridge. Using a cooler is like camping.  Except when we camp, we buy ice.  At home we make our own little ice packs and refreeze them, or we use items from the freezer that we need to unthaw anyway, like a chicken or a couple packages of ground beef.

​I love to see my fruit and vegetables in their baskets.  It reminds me to use them and brightens my kitchen in a minimalist way.

​In the future, I would love to try is turning a small chest freezer into a refrigerator.  Some bloggers claim that they consume only $6.00 per YEAR in electricity.  You can’t buy these (yet) but there are plans online that involve inserting a thermostat in the freezer to control the temperature and adding shelves to make the food more accessible. Here are some plans I’d like to try.    

When I was a kid, I had this great-aunt who always kept food on her screened back porch in the winter.  And honestly, I thought she was weird.  Now when I look back, I get it.  I get what she was doing.  She was either storing her leftovers out where they could cool prior to putting them in the fridge, or her fridge was full and this was her off grid leftover storage.  In Michigan we have a lot of free cooling we don’t use in the winter.
So, maybe, just maybe we don’t need as big as a fridge as we think we do.  Did you know that in Europe, the average size of a fridge is just 9.7 cubic feet?

Here is a good article on the history of the American fridge and how it got so big.

And another about how your American fridge is making you fat. This one is hilarious.

Could YOU downsize your fridge?  Or could you shut it off during a cold spell? At the very least, just think about emptying it when you leave to go on vacation.  It will save you some money and give you a chance to really see what’s in there.

*Note from Bethany: Freezing leftovers, in addition to freeing up fridge space, is smart because they will be fresher when you eat them. Some people separate leftovers before freezing (vegetables go in one freezer container, meat in another, etc.) and when the container is full, they make soup or casserole with it all. Bread ends can be frozen for bread crumbs; single grapes or other fruit ends can be frozen and used for smoothies.

*****
​
This is the last article in our Saving on Electricity series! I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have over the last few months. -Bethany

Wow! July was certainly a humdinger for our little hobby farm. It was definitely a pivotal point in my animal-husbandry journey. We had to make some tough decisions, and I would say it's been the most difficult month since we've started keeping animals.

The Chickens

In July, the raccoons came out with a vengeance. The first thing they did was destroy my feed area. Previously I stored my feed in 5-gallon buckets, but they kept opening and tipping over the buckets. I decided to buy two new feed containers.

While the new feed containers prevented the coons from eating chicken feed, it did not prevent them from eating the chickens, unfortunately. We lost more chickens in July than in all of the other months put together, since we've had chickens. I estimate a loss of around 25%.

Something needed to be done. I spent all of June patching up holes in our fencing, but of course racoons will always find a 3" hole and somehow squeeze through. After some talk about a chicken tractor, Hubs decided to build me a chicken coop. He was determined!!

We spent a whole Saturday, plus some, working on the coop together. I really enjoyed getting to spend time with my husband and watching the process from start to finish. He is a shed builder by trade, so in building the coop I got to see a little of what he does every day. I did a lot of 2 x 4" cutting and fetched things for Hubs. I also got to paint some trim, helped shingle the roof and helped him put together the nesting boxes. 

I would call this a 5-star chicken hotel. It comes complete with a little chicken door, a feed room with mesh door, hinged roost for easy cleaning (Hubs' new idea), and eight laying boxes. I hung the feeder in the center of the coop. Before I let the chickens out in the morning, I hoist the feeder up high enough so the little goats can't reach it (unfortunately they are still small enough to squeeze through the chicken door and steal feed). In the evening when we close them up for the night, I lower the feed again so the chickens can get to it. In addition to keeping the feed safe from little goats, putting it higher during the day encourages the hens to dig around for bugs and eat grass.

Egg production dropped dramatically because of the heat. I went from getting 18 eggs per day, down to 6. I've had enough for two regular customers and us, but definitely not any extra.

The Goats

At the end of June, I was tired. Exhausted, really. I felt like I spent several hours each day fixing fences, chasing in goats and worrying about if they had enough grass to eat. I complained to my husband about it, and he recommended selling the goats. I didn't want to, of course, but after some thinking I decided it was the best thing to do.

My original plan of breeding the goats did not work out as planned; only one concieved. It turned out that she had a defective udder, and was therefore unsuitable for breeding again. The wool has also not been an easy sell, so it put pressure on me to make money from the other goats in order to pay for the Pygoras.

Now that we have sold a majority of the goats, I am realizing how nice it is to have fewer animals. The pastures have grown back nice and lush. I have more time and money to spend on the remaining goats, as well as my chickens. Now I am just eager to sell the kids and get back to having only two goats again. 

With far fewer goats, I will be able to do more thorough care (using herbs, more diverse feeding, training, etc.) and more learning about goats instead of spending all of my time taking care of them. I realize that next year, when Adi has babies again, I need to sell them as soon as possible. Thankfully I won't have to wait on paperwork, which will help a lot. I am wondering if I should breed a little earlier (kidding in March instead of April) in order to sell the kids sooner in the year. We ended up bringing Adi inside to kid anyway, so perhaps it doesn't matter when she kids.

Bottom Line

Income
Eggs: $42.00
Milk products: $39.83
Other farmers market stuff: $18.00
Total income: $99.83

Expenses
Layer Mash: $44.00
Corn: $20.00
Feed Trash Cans: $40.00
Chicken Watering Nipples: $6.40

Total expenses: $110.40

Total Net Profit for June: -$10.57

Year-to-Date Net Profit: $56.92

So, this month we were down on our net profit. I debated whether or not to put the trash cans in "expenses", because they are a one time cost and we could have found cheaper trash cans somewhere else. However, the fact still remains that I did buy them, and I probably would have bought SOME kind of container because of the urgency of the situation, instead of sitting around waiting for a free garage sale garbage can.

What I Didn't Include

Two things I didn't include on the month's bottom line were 1) the sale of the goats and also 2) the cost of the chicken coop. I didn't feel like it was fair to include the income from the goats because I got them for free. I will not be selling a herd of goats every year... it was just something we tried and it didn't work out. We had a similar thing happen with a sheep we bought last year. It just wasn't a good fit for our farm, and we had to let it go. 

About the coop: my idea for the chickens was to build a small chicken tractor with scraps and used chicken wire. It was Hubs' idea to build the 5-star chicken hotel, which probably cost at least $1000.00 in materials alone. Both the sale of the goats and the building of the chicken coop were kind of crisis/paradigm shift decisions. It will take years and years for my chicken flock to pay off a chicken coop that is valued at almost $2000.00. I might even die before then.

Here is the thing to remember about big purchases, though. First of all, they likely have resale value. Second, the coop will save a lot of chickens from being eaten, which in turn saves a lot of money. The Craigslist value of laying hens right now is anywhere from $5.00-$10.00 each. I have heard stories at the farmers market and read Facebook posts about entire chicken flocks being wiped out because of raccoon issues. How much money is wasted every year by chickens being attacked? It's something to think about.

As with many purchasing decisions we make, the chicken coop was tied in with Hubs' business. It is being used as a display that he can show his customers, and when we are done with the coop he'll sell it on the lot. The materials that way can be counted as a business expense. 

Moving Forward
With fewer animals to take care of (and hopefully less, soon!), I'm getting excited about having a self-sustaining homestead again. The one milk goat can more than support herself. I am in the process of making more soaps, gearing up for the fall farmers market season. Previously I had thought about doing more retail soaps, but now that the farm is smaller there is no need to sell that much.

My farmers market gig thus far has worked okay on a small scale. It is a simple way to sell my farm products. However, in order to pay for the booth fee and gas to get there, I still have to spend at least an afternoon in the kitchen making baked goods, which count as half of my gross sales (more or less, depending on the day). I don't enjoy baking as much as the other things I do, so my long-term plan is to sell primarily soaps and non-perishables, with perishable products only as I have the time to make them.

I figured out in July that I can make more money going to a small market than a large one. The difference between a $20.00 booth fee and a $5.00 booth fee is quite large when you are selling items with an average profit margin of $3.00, and only make 15-25 sales the whole day.

Of course I will still be at the farmers market during the three September weeks I signed up for, and possibly another fall market (our July "Moonlight Market" this year was cancelled, and/or moved to a later date). However, in future seasons I will be happy to only attend markets once a month. Doing this May-October will give me a good $200.00-$300.00 per year to fund my little homestead with, in addition to sales I make from my home and selling goat kids in the spring. 

Til next month,
-Bethany

July is officially over! And I'm not too sad to see it go, either.

1. Picked garlic, green peppers, broccoli and green beans out of the garden.

2. Made laundry soap.

3. Line dried two loads of laundry.

4. Sold four dozen eggs.

5. We went on a frugal date. I have been trying to do more picnics, because it is so nice out during the evenings. This week we went to a free community concert. I packed some homemade ham and cheese wraps, along with granola bars from the bent 'n' dent store. 

6. After our date, we went to Walmart to pick up a few things and saw that men's shorts were on sale. I have a really hard time finding Hubs' size (32/32) at garage sales and thrift stores, so we bought three pairs for him. 

7. Made a batch of goat's milk soap.
 
8. Picked some sunflowers out of the garden for our kitchen table.

9. Continued to work on my book. This week I found two older books to use for research; one called Quick Thrifty Cooking, and also The Frugal Gourmet. I have been looking for the latter book at our library for months, thinking I saw it there. Finally I just asked for it, and as it turns out they didn't even have a copy. By chance, my mom found it at a thrift store and thought I'd be interested. How cool is that?

In addition to research, I also worked on a section about fats & oils, and looked for possible cover designers. 

10. Cooked a roast in the crock pot. Unfortunately our schedules got messed up and we didn't get to eat it that night, but I put it in the fridge for lunch the next day. When I went to take it out, I noticed that much of the fat had solidified to the top. I picked it off of the broth and saved it to use in soap.

11. Walgreens had a 75% off sale on photo books this week. I decided to take advantage of it and order one with pictures from our honeymoon. Hubs and I are not "picture people", so we actually have very few physical pictures of our wedding or honeymoon. In fact, all of the honeymoon photos are from his cell phone, so I thought it would be best to put them in a book instead of printing them individually. For $8.00, I thought the book turned out pretty well. 

I am going to sign up for Walmart and RiteAid email updates as well, and wait for a sale on their photo books. I am curious as to the quality of these stores as opposed to companies like Shutterfly or Snapfish. Eventually I would like to make books from all of our travels, in addition to a book of wedding photos. There is no rush, though. Most of our travel photos are from the cell phone, so I will use the travel photos to experiment with different photo book companies. Then I'll chose the best company to do our wedding pictures.

Goals for Next Week:

1. Order lye and vanillin for soap.
2. Sign up for Walmart, Rite Aid, Shutterfly and Snapfish emails.
3. Continue weeding/deforesting the garden.
4. Post garden and hobby farm updates on blog.