​Hey everyone! Guess what? More rain this week. 

1. Cooking: Rhubarb is ready! I made rhubarb crisp and rhubarb muffins this week. For the muffins, I replaced all of the sugar and 2/3 of the fat with applesauce. To replace 3/4 c. sugar and 2/3 c. sour cream, I just added 1 1/3 c. of applesauce. This cut down the cost of the recipe by over $0.50, since I made the applesauce from free apples several years ago. I loved the texture of the muffins, but they could have used some real sugar on top, or maybe some honey in the batter. But overall, I thought it was a real success. Rhubarb without sugar! What an idea!  

April and May have not been as busy as I thought they would be. Several weeks ago I bought some "convenience meals"—boxed, bagged, frozen and canned stuff. One of you mentioned that the flavor is lacking in a lot of the store-bought meals. Well, you were right. I like how easy it is to take something out of the freezer and put it in the oven and have lunch or dinner ready, but we tried two different lasagnas (cheap brands) and they weren't very good. I also tried some different boxed pasta meals. Those were good, but honestly not better or easier to prepare than what I normally make. Lastly, I tried some canned ravioli. I used to like canned pasta as a kid, but not any more. Hubs was happy with most of the convenience food, but I felt like the quality—and in some cases, the convenience—just wasn't there, for the amount of money you pay.

One change I'm satisfied with is using store bought bread and canned meat. Canned meat (both home-canned and store bought) eliminates the need for thawing and cooking meat, which isn't an option for last-minute meals. Store bought bread isn't healthier and certainly doesn't taste better. However, it's not that much more expensive than homemade bread ($1.00 instead of $0.50). Not only do I avoid flouring up the kitchen every week, but the store-bought stuff is more sturdy for sandwiches and travels better.

Apart from frozen leftovers, sandwiches are the best "convenience" meal I've found so far. I can put almost anything between two slices of bread: random bits of leftover meat, or garden veggies or eggs (which are plentiful this time of year). Canned and frozen meat cost about the same, so no budget increase there, and if we buy two loaves of bread per week it only costs $1.00 more than if we made it at home. Best of all, sandwiches always taste good!

2. Gardening: I harvested lettuce, spinach and a few radishes from the garden this week. I also potted up some self-seeded delphiniums and other plants to take to my sister. For anyone wondering, delphiniums are a great investment. I started about 8 plants from seed. The plants are perennials, so they come back every year. Not only that, but they self-seed and create little plantlets! I wouldn't call them "invasive" at all, but just productive enough to have some to share. They make a beautiful cut flower for arrangements, or just to enjoy in the garden. Lastly, I repotted some houseplants that had outgrown their pots.

3. House: not much is happening with the house project. The concrete company poured the foundation, so all that is finished. Now we are just waiting for concrete to be poured in the garage floor, and we can get to work on framing! 

See that green door to the left? That opens to a bathroom that was added on to the front porch at some point. We are going to be taking out the bathroom and bringing it back to its original glory as part of the wrap-around porch. Then the porch will extend past our kitchen/dining room addition and stop where the garage starts.

4. Trees: we did plant some trees along one edge of our property. We planted six maple trees and one Kentucky coffee tree (that I sprouted from seed!). The maples were just saplings from other areas of the property. They might survive, they might not—but at least they were free! We put an old tire around each tree to protect it from weed eaters, lawn mowers and pedestrians. We still have a big pile of tires out back to dispose of, but at least some of them are being put to use. In total we planted seven trees.

I guess it was kind of a slow week here. It's one of those "hurry up and wait" situations. When the weather is nice, there are a million things to do. When the weather is bad... there are still (albeit less pressing) things to do. I spent a lot of the week cleaning, reading, catching up on laundry and making some changes around the house. 

5. Robot-proofing: I put boards along the bottom of our couch so the robot vacuum doesn't get stuck under there. If I'm not utterly exhausted, I like to pick up and run the vacuum (which is more like a sweeper) at night in the kitchen/living/dining room of our house.

6. Kid stuff: I also moved Princess' mirror up a bit so she can see herself better (I first hung it when she was still crawling). I  made family picture magnets with old Christmas cards and unused business card magnets and put them lower on the fridge where she can see them. First I used contact paper to cover the photo, then used a glue stick to attach the photo onto the magnet. I like the idea of business card magnets, but they can't hold up so much as a postcard. I got frustrated trying to keep family photos up, which is why I decided to just glue the magnets and photos together. Each business card magnet made two photo magnets: 

Hey, guess what? It rained most of the week! That means I actually have a few accomplishments to share.

1. Cooking: I cooked one of those cheap hams I bought last week. It was a shank ham, and a bear to cut up. The meat was good roasted, but it came off the bone hard because it was very fatty. It took me a long time to cut off the fat in order to get non-gristly meat. Finally I decided to cook it again in the Instant Pot, hoping for fall-off-the-bone meat. It still don't come off easily. Finally I got a good portion of the meat off and decided to just leave the rest on the bone in order to make broth. When the broth was finished cooking, the rest of that meat finally came off. So I'm pleased to announce that none of the meat was wasted—I used the broth meat in soup.

I also made yogurt this week in the Instant Pot. I have been using yogurt starter from the previous batch for several weeks now, and it's still going strong. So that's $0.25 per week or so, saved. Here's a secret: making yogurt is so easy, I feel guilty calling it an "accomplishment". It's literally dumping milk into the Instant Pot, pushing some buttons. Then when the pot beeps, you take out the inner pot and set it in a sink of cold water. Stir a couple of minutes until the temperature goes down, then add some yogurt from your last batch, stir, and put it back into the Instant Pot. Push some more buttons. The next day, the yogurt is done. So easy, and I've never had any failed yogurt this way, even with homemade starter.

2. Shopping: I know, I said I was going to stop telling you our grocery spending. But I was curious to see how much our bill would go up. Would it double? Would it triple?? Or would it spike and then gradually come back down?

For the first two weeks, we spent about double. The next week, it was less than double. Last week we still had a bunch of groceries left from Aldi, so I bought fewer groceries; carrots, onions, frozen produce, bread, tuna, etc. We even got off-brand ritz crackers, organic celery and a mango (all no-nos on a bare-bones budget), and the total came to just $28.78. So who knows? Maybe we won't end up spending much more, after all. Maybe a simple $10.00/wk. increase is all it takes to ward off boredom and have a healthier standard of eating.

3. Thrifting: I went to the Sharing Corner (basically a free neighborhood garage sale). I dropped off two garbage bags full of stuff before the sale, and brought home half a bagful of new-to-me treasures: clothes and one book for Princess, and two belts for myself. 

​4. Gardening: I planted four tomato plants, chives and Bells of Ireland (a flower) in the garden. I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't freeze, but if it does, I still have back-up tomato plants in reserve. Earlier this year I planted radishes, lettuce, Swiss chard and spinach in one of my greenhouse beds. In another bed, I planted parsnips, beets and garlic.

​So far, the spinach is looking the best! This will be my first year growing greens (besides lettuce). I started cooking with spinach recently, adding the frozen, chopped variety into soup, casserole, pasta and smoothies. I'm even more happy to be growing it myself now; not only will I save money by not purchasing the frozen bags, but I'll have almost-free organic spinach (for those who don't know, I'm trying to avoid the Dirty Dozen. Organics are so expansive. *Sigh*).

Organic celery costs twice as much as conventional (not to mention the stalks are smaller) so I think I'll start replacing it with the almost-free spinach and other garden vegetables. One package of celery can last a long time if you only use it for mirepoix.

My garden is like my husband. Every year I fall more in love! At the beginning of 2019 I was worried about how I'd take care of the strawberries AND vegetable garden, along with all of the other stuff we have going on. Well, I'm pretty proud of myself. The strawberries are looking great! Every afternoon I get a chance, I'm out there with a spade digging up weeds. Unlike last year, the paths between the rows are fluffy with straw, so it's not so hard on my knees (we used way too much straw to cover the berries, but that's better than too little!). Since we put a fence up last year, deer have not been a problem... so far.

I also dragged a little play structure out by the patch, which keeps our daughter busy while I work. That gives me a good 20-30 minutes out there, in the morning and possibly the evening if needed. I think this year is going to be SO much better than last, even though we have all of the extra construction work going on.


House Update

And of course, this post wouldn't be complete without an update on our house project! This is where we left off last week (minus the chimney, of course):

And this is today:

1. Groceries: I bought a frozen lasagna and boxed pasta dinner at Walmart for about $7.50 total. We returned $17.30 worth of cans, so I didn't figure the grocery costs into our normal monthly budget. Since we will be very busy during the next three months, I spent time perusing Walmart's website for boxed, canned and frozen meals to see how they might fit into our regular menu. For two people, the frozen meals were most expensive at $5.00-9.00. Boxed meals were about $2.00 (but, of course, don't include meat) and canned meals (including meat) also cost about $2.00. While packaged meals aren't all that healthy OR frugal, I'll be working in the strawberry patch and on our new-to-us house and won't have as much time to spend on regular household tasks. What time I do have will probably be spent in our vegetable garden or sleeping. Last year June was exhausting for me, and that was without the house. Some disposable diapers, paper plates and already-prepared meals are a small price to pay for an extra hour or two every day during such a busy time. The premade meals, even at $2.00-8.00 each, cost the same or less than fast food, and we won't have to drive anywhere to get dinner on. 

As our budget is now, I spend about $2.00 per meal (lunch and dinner). The packaged food will probably put us a little over budget. I am hoping that I'll be able to replicate some of the store-bought meals at home though, and save money that way. Some of them are only frozen vegetables with meat and rice. "I just can't bring myself to pay $8.00 for that!" I complained to my brother, while standing in the frozen food aisle at Walmart. "I can cook some rice in the Instant Pot and dump a few cans in for a lot less than $8.00." So, that could also be a solution.

2. Cooking: I made bread in the bread machine. I'm still working on spending less time in the kitchen (while still making food from scratch, on a budget). This week I spent between 30 minutes and 60 minutes per day cooking (plus a similar amount of time washing dishes every night). Doing all of the cooking tasks at once has cut down the time, I believe, by a bit.

3. Gardening: I planted sweet potato slips and green onions in dirt (they were previously in water). I didn't get a chance to plant anything in the garden this week, but I did spend several afternoons peeling straw off of my strawberry patch. We put it on way too thick last year (we just rolled several big round bales' worth out onto the rows) so it was a real task to pick off all of the extra. The good news is that I have plenty of straw to use now.

4. Thrifting: I bought a cardigan and lightweight hoodie for myself at $1.10 each. We found a pair of jeans for Hubs that cost just $3.00 (we don't usually find his size, so that was a great deal!), a glass candlestick for $0.50, a plate for $0.30 and a square basket for $0.45. I use square baskets for organizing like items on shelves.

5. Music: I used a Prime credit to buy a classical music album for $0.09. Recently I've been trying to decide how I want to collect music for my own use, future home school use, etc. Tape and CD players are becoming more expensive and hard-to-find as people move toward digital music; not only that, but CDs are easily scratched up and then they're worthless. It's possible to listen to music for free on the internet, but Pandora doesn't let you pick the songs, and both Youtube and Pandora have commercials. Premium or subscription services don't provide enough value for the cost (commercial-free Youtube is $12.00/mo., Spotify is $10.00). I know that the music I'm looking for (generic kids' tunes, classical music, etc.) is cheap enough to just buy, but it's hard to do that when I know I can probably get it for free somewhere... if I'm willing to listen to enough commercials. But I don't want to waste brain waves on commercials. If any of you have tips on how/where to get free downloadable music, let me know!

6. Books: I ordered a book from the library interloan system.

7. Shower curtain: I replaced three broken shower curtain rings.

I think that's about it for this week. 

Til next time,
-Bethany 

Even though it's still cold out (in the 40's today), I'm getting so excited for spring.

1. Groceries: We didn't buy any groceries this week. As the warmer months draw near, I'll be shopping less and harvesting more. I'm hoping to add fruits and vegetables to the eggs I already collect from our homestead.

2. Cooking: I cooked and froze the beef I bought on sale last week. I also made cookies! Lately I've been working hard to do most of my cooking once a day. That means I'll look at the day's meals, and see if there is anything I can do to cook both meals at once. Then I try to do all of that within an hour. I set the timer and try to work like mad! Of course, I let Princess help me, so there are plenty of interruptions. Even with the interruptions, I've been keeping that batch-cooking time to around an hour. I still spend about 15 minutes per meal actually putting everything together, if it's not something I can prepare in advance.

I would say that I spent about an hour and 45 minutes, per day, this week on cooking. My goal is to get that number down to an hour (except on Wednesday, which is cooking day, and Friday afternoon, when I bake things for fun).

3. Homestead: I gathered plenty of eggs this week from our chickens. I also foraged some Kentucky Coffee Tree beans. I cleaned them, soaked them for 24 hours (this was because I tried planting some of them) and roasted the rest of the beans at 300 degrees F for three hours. I think most of the beans exploded, but only a few landed at the bottom of the oven. A majority stayed in the pan. Then I used our Vitamix dry container to grind the beans into a powder. It turned out great!

I think that's all for now. How was your week?

Til next time,
-Bethany

I love this time of year. The weather is starting to warm up, gardening and yard-sale season is near. We submitted the house blueprints for building permits this week, so that's super exciting as well!

1. Groceries: We spent 37.03 at Kroger and an unspecified amount at Walmart... I'm thinking it was around $5.00. We bought a bag of potatoes, a Reese's bar and probably something else that I don't remember. 😕 So we'll call this week's total $42.03. My goal was to spend just $90.00 in March; right now we're at $87.51. I think that calls for a spending freeze! At Kroger I got 80/20 ground beef on sale for $2.00/lb, cheese on sale for $2.00/lb., and grapes for $1.00/lb. Those were some great prices for our area, so I was happy to sacrifice the next few weeks' grocery money.

2. Cooking: I made yogurt (with starter from a previous batch), cooked a bag of chicken thighs and made broth with the bones. I also made a number of bird suet patties from ground beef fat that I saved in the freezer. Our little girl loves watching the birds eat!

3. Gardening: most of the seeds I planted last week have germinated! All of the tomato seeds were a great success. The chives have also all germinated. The hot pepper seeds, eggplant and all but one pumpkin-on-a-stick seeds have not germinated yet, but those could take at least another week. 

4. ​Crafts: I painted the rest of my mismatched jar lids. 

​5. Thrifting: I went to TWO thrift stores this week! At the first store I bought two T-shirts for myself at $0.50 each and a dress for $3.50. The dress had a small tear, but I looked up the brand website and similar dresses sell for around $100.00 each. So I thought that was a steal! I also bought a plate for $0.79 (not a great deal, but it had sentimental value), a candlestick for $0.50 and a basket for Princess' books at $1.50. The basket wasn't cheap, but square baskets never are at thrift stores. It keeps the books contained, which frees up more of my time to do fun things.

The second store was a bit higher priced, but I did find a $2.00 cardigan for Princess to wear with her (free) Easter dress. But the BEST deal was a bunch of all-in-one diapers (BumGenius Freetime) diapers for $2.00 each. I bought ALL of them! LOL! Even though we're pretty much done with cloth diapers for Princess, I hope we're not done having babies. For the next baby I had considered buying more all-in-ones (they're less work than the other kinds). Not only that, but it's nice to have extras that you can loan out or give away to others who are interested in using cloth. Some of the diapers need minor repairs, but those won't be a big deal because I'm rehabbing some of our other diapers already (see below). I can always sell the diapers if I end up not using them.

6. Sewing: I worked on replacing the elastics in some used Fuzzibunz diapers. It was a surprisingly easy project—I just had to buy the proper sized elastic, which cost less than $2.00. One of my sisters-in-law is due with her first baby this summer, and she said she was interested in using cloth. I thought it would be nice to have some that she can try out while she's here (they live out of the country) and even take home if she likes them.  

7. Toddler exercise: I brought a little plastic playhouse/gym inside for our daughter to play on when it's cold outside. I noticed that she enjoys climbing all over the furniture, so I thought the playhouse slide would be a better outlet for her energy. So far it's been great! Not only that, but it was free, left by the previous renters. 

8. Cans: I picked up over $5.00 worth of cans to recycle while on walks. This time of year, the roads are LITTERED with cans! It's like a gold mine out there! 

That's all, folks!
Til next time,
-Bethany

Hi everyone! I did a terrible job recording frugal accomplishments last week (as in, I didn't write down a single one). That being said, I thought I'd pop in here with a few things anyway.

We didn't buy any groceries again this week. Hubs was gone over the weekend to an event, so Princess and I chilled out at home. I attempted two days of potty training. I think she was starting to "get" it, but I'm not sure. For now she's back in diapers. She's still young yet, I just thought I'd check in to see if she's ready or not. Some tries were successful, many more were not. I figured out that she pees about every two hours, which means that her cloth diapers really only hold one pee (the reason for this being that she "floods" the diaper and it can't absorb fast enough). I was hoping that the weekend would be a little more successful, but it left me with more questions than answers.

One accomplishment wasn't really mine, but I had a part in it! Last weekend we were helping remodel my sister's new-to-her house. She was getting a new stove, and asked "Do you think there's enough room in the dumpster for this old stove?" she asked. "It came with the house."
"Dumpster!" I cried incredulously. "I cooked a frozen pizza in that thing. It still works! You're not going to toss a working oven, are you?"
"Well, what else am I supposed to do with it?" she asked. I looked again at the stove. It was true that it was very grimy and dirty, and the door handle was cracked and a small corner had broken off somehow. It would be perfect for a place like... deer camp.
"There's someone out there who would love this working stove," I said. "Sell it on Craigslist. Or Facebook Marketplace. All of the cool kids are using Facebook Marketplace." Of course, she had never sold anything on Craigslist and I had never sold anything on Marketplace (which tells you how cool I am). While she went with Hubs to the hardware store, I used my mad photography skills to snap some pictures and list it on Marketplace. The stove didn't sell that day, but this last weekend she relisted it and it sold for $60.00. Selling the stove freed up space in the dumpster and added $60.00 to her house remodel fund.

My sister is not the only one working on a house remodel. My in-laws are currently remodeling one of their rental houses to move into. After that, Hubs and I will be remodeling their old house and moving into it! So I am pretty excited, but between all of the remodeling going on there will be less time for frugal accomplishments. Of course I'll be busy with our house, but I also want to help my sister and in-laws with their projects as well. I'm hoping to pull off regular posts and/or Youtube videos, but if it's a little quiet around here, now you'll know why.

Since there's still snow flying, I'm taking every opportunity to devour more good non-fiction books. I wish I could quantify the amount of money saved by reading, but I can't. So it probably doesn't count as a frugal accomplishment.

I think that's about it! 
Til next time,
-Bethany 

I don't have a whole lot of frugal accomplishments this week. I spent a lot of my free time reading, plus we were gone or busy almost every evening, as well as all of Sunday and Monday. But here is my small offering for the week:

1. Groceries: we didn't buy any groceries.

2. Cooking: I cooked a turkey this week and made broth with the bones. I also baked bread. 

3. Free stuff: Over the weekend we helped my sister remodel her fixer upper home several hours away. We were able to help her get a lot done, but she also gave me some free stuff! I got an assortment of half-used shampoo and conditioners, plus some clothing. 

4. Hobby farm: Hubs helped me (or rather, I helped him) make some structures for my vegetable garden this year. We made two diagonal trellises, a vertical trellis and a tepee trellis to fit over my 4'x4' raised beds. I am going to use the diagonal trellises for cucumbers and small zucchini/melons, and hopefully they will serve a dual purpose as shade for lettuce. The vertical trellis will be for tomatoes, and the tepee trellis is going to be for my purple Chinese long beans. Hubs also put a little shelf in our chicken coop, which has been very helpful. Nearly all of these things were made with scrap lumber; we used one 2x4 for the tomato trellis.

In addition to that, the chickens are beginning to lay more eggs at this point. Last week I used the excess eggs to make boiled eggs, egg salad, crepes and fried egg sandwiches, in addition to eating them for breakfast.

I was very happy to get the garden structures built before "busy season" hits in March. Not only were most of the structures free, but they'll help me grow more produce, do less weeding and they will beautify the garden. I'm so thankful to have a handy husband! 

I won't be posting hobby farm updates this year. Instead, I think I will just do small blurbs in the weekly post. My goal this year is to produce as much food as possible for the $500.00 or so that I'll earn from selling strawberries in the spring. That amount is plenty to support our chickens and garden, but I'll be looking for more things to grow or raise myself, inexpensively.

5. Youtube: If you haven't watched it already, I made a video for Youtube last week: 

I think that's about all for now!
Until next time,
​-Bethany

Good morning everyone! We're back from our little road trip. Two weeks ago we went down to Florida to see my family, and then down to Barbados for a few days (just Hubs and I) to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. It went so fast! I had a lot of fun. Ever the homebody, though, I was still happy to return. I don't have time to write about the entire trip, but I've put a slideshow below for your viewing pleasure:

Alright, now for frugal accomplishments!

1. Groceries: we spent $77.03 at Kroger, and $90.00 (to the penny!) at Walmart. In total, we spent $167.03 on much-needed groceries, plus a few extras. My monthly budget is $130.00, so I'll only spend $93.00 in March. That's fine by me, as I'd rather spend spring months working in the garden than making a weekly shopping trip.

I spent about an hour sifting through digital and non-digital Kroger coupons. I was going in the store for pork loins ($1.50/lb.) and 80/20 ground beef ($2.00/lb.), so I decided to go "all in" and see what coupon deals I could find. I still can't decide whether the few dollars saved with coupons is worth the time. When all is said and done, was the $16.00 spent on produce (to use my "$4.00 off $20.00 spent in the produce department") a better deal than what I could have gotten at Walmart for $16.00, without all of the time spent couponing? None of the deals were extraordinary, but I was able to get some things for at or below Walmart prices. I think I will always use coupons to some extent, it's just a matter of deciding how far down the rabbit hole I want to go at any given time. 

When we were at the checkout counter, I got a kids' fruit card for our toddler. Kroger has a "free fruit of the month" deal where kids can get one piece of free fruit every month.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Bethany

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also, you can watch my latest Youtube vlog below:

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

-Bethany