​Hi everyone! I did lot of Christmas things in the last week and a half. I hope you’ll enjoy this week’s vlog:

​Just a few other things that you might be interested in:

1. I’m reading a very good book by Debi Pearl called Create a Better Brain. It’s a guide on how to use different brain-changing techniques to improve your quality of life (and that of your family). Even though the ideas can be applied to and used by anyone, it's written specifically for Christian women. This book is a bit drier than some of her other books, but it has a lot of the same down-to-earth, hands-on practicality that I love about her previous works. She references one book fairly often that I read a few years ago by Norman Dodge: The Brain That Changes Itself (also a good read, with some "mature" content). 

Debi’s book is fairly new/expensive, so I didn’t buy it. Instead I used my AMAZING Scribd subscription (affiliate link) to read it on my phone. Different parts of the book led me on a few rabbit trails this week.

2. Free music: one of the rabbit trails was a hunt to find good quality music and the challenge of getting it in a format that I like and can use. I already have classical music on CDs (not that I have a good CD player, or even that my laptop has a CD drive… it doesn’t), and you can find it everywhere on the internet and even public radio. This week I played some Vivaldi and Mozart on our Amazon Echo Dot that I keep in the kitchen. This is not my favorite player, however, since it eavesdrops so I have to unplug it after every use.

The other music we listened to this week was the Getty Kids Hymnal on Youtube. Hymns are my favorite, but it’s hard to find them on Youtube where the lyrics are clear AND they are enjoyable to listen to. Mostly I just want to learn the words and melody; as far as what instruments/tempo is used, I don’t really care. The Kids Hymnal songs are so much fun. A lot of the songs are upbeat with an Irish feel. I would like to buy them at some point, but I haven’t decided whether to get a physical CD to rip, or buy them on Google Play. I’d think I’d rather have a CD that I can duplicate across devices/platforms and not have to rely on the internet for.

3. And lastly, along the lines of internet: I switched search engines from Google to DuckDuckGo. Here’s the long story of why:

 There has been a lot of kerfuffle on Youtube about their new censoring policies, and how their algorithms are squashing certain content. Their policy says it will delete videos that are “untrue”, and they gave flat earth and certain conspiracy theories as examples. I don’t have a problem with those things, but sometimes truth looks a whole lot like a conspiracy theory. Furthermore, Youtube favors liberal content (something I don’t care for) over conservative-leaning content, and curates content for me based on that bias. One example is that I’m constantly getting “Why I Left _____ Christian Cult” videos in my suggestions box. I don’t know why these videos are suggested, since I never click on them. Anyhow, a rabbit trail from the Youtube issues led me to the fact that Google also favors liberal content in its search results. DuckDuckGo is a search engine that (to my knowledge) isn’t “partial” about what you search for, and it also doesn’t track your searches (and therefore curate content “just for you”). I feel like the switch will save me time and hassle with searches, and possibly save me money since I won't be (as) aggressively marketed to.

 So, that’s about it for this week. Between now and the new year I’ll be ruminating over different goals, plans and ideas for 2020. No guarantee on a vlog since… well, Christmas. But I hope that you, too, will be able to have a happy time with family and spend some time in quiet reflection.

Til next time, 
-Bethany 

Hi everyone! I had a great week. You can see some highlights of my week below:

We also went thrifting before a church event. I didn’t find very much, but I did find some books and possible Christmas presents.

Speaking of presents, I ordered several on Amazon this week. Gifts aren’t something I intentionally economize on, but if I can save money or get more value for my dollars, of course you know I will. At least one person on my list will be getting a homemade gift, and several others will receive thrifted gifts. Not everyone appreciates used gifts, but several people in my life can appreciate them, so we often exchange second-hand stuff. Of course I can't share any gift projects (darn!) on a public blog yet, but... I've been working on them. :)

That's about it for this week. Hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas season!
-Bethany

​Hi everyone! I hope all of my U.S. readers enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration. We started the holiday on Wednesday and didn’t really quit running until Saturday. 

Fun times. And so many pies!
Here's this week's little vlog:

I know I said in the video that we’d spend about $20.00 on Thanksgiving. Well, I decided to do a cheese and cracker tray for each family, plus fruit, plus some other things, so we spent WAY more than $20.00. In the interest of full disclosure. LOL! 
​

​This was my first time brining a turkey, and it was a smashing success. SO good. Here is the brine recipe:

1 quart water (plus 3 quarts, added later)
1 c. kosher salt
1/2 c. sugar
A lemon wedge
Various seasonings: tarragon, sage, parsley, etc.

Bring 1 quart of water to a boil. Add salt, sugar and seasonings. Stir until the salt and sugar are dissolved.

The brine needs to be cool before you add it to the bird. I cooled mine quickly by adding 1 quart of ice (topped with water), plus 2 quarts of very cold water, to the hot brine. You can also set the pot in a sink of ice cold water to cool it down.

Dump your fully thawed-out turkey into a clean 5-gallon bucket. Add brine. I needed three gallons (a triple recipe!) to cover our giant turkey. Put the lid on the bucket and leave it in a cold place for 24 hours. You are supposed to put it in your refrigerator. I put ours out on the porch, since it was so cold outside anyway.

After 24 hours, dump out the brine (don’t reuse it, since it contains impurities from the meat) and let the turkey set overnight to dry out a little. I left the turkey in the bucket and set it in the fridge. 

The next morning, cook your turkey as usual. Since our turkey had been skinned, it didn’t have a lot of fat for self-basting. Instead of basting, I ran a stick of butter over the whole thing, every 45 minutes during cook time. It only took about 1/4 c. of butter to do this, and the meat turned out juicy and amazing!

A used copy of this book runs about $20.00 on Amazon. When I was still living with my parents, this was one of the half-dozen culinary textbooks I invested in. Some were published by the Culinary Institute of America, and others were just books being used in local college classes at the time. I easily spent over $100.00 in cooking books, but I think it was worth it (tip: don't buy the latest edition of ANY textbook! The basic information doesn't change that much). The textbooks included plenty of step-by-step tutorials with clear, beautiful pictures in addition to recipes. They also included scientific explanations for things like emulsions, tempering, etc. lists of ingredients other countries, and sample menus. The recipes in these books are usually excellent and go beyond what “normal” cookbooks offer.  

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday weekend! If you’re curious, I didn't do much Black Friday shopping. I bought some towels and clothes at Walmart, and a throw blanket at a discount store, but I feel like the urgency of Black Friday shopping is gone. Now stores have sales that are a whole weekend long, and discounts aren't all that great (30% on non-tech/appliance items). We went to Walmart again today (Sunday) and most, if not all, of the Black Friday doorbusters were still available at their discounted price.

That's all for now,
​-Bethany

As the weather continues to get colder and we move closer to Christmas season (yay!), I’m thinking a little more about what my plans for 2020. Over the last year, we fixed up and moved into our new house, plus our daughter transitioned from “baby” to “toddler”. Honestly, I really love the toddler stage. I worry a lot less and communicate with her a lot more. In a way, I have more freedom to do my own things, but in another way I have less. 

Why no frugal accomplishments this week? I was so naive when we moved into this house. I thought that once we moved in, the house would magically paint and decorate itself. That, or it would magically do all of the laundry, cooking, and cleaning without me. Oh, how wrong I was. It has been over two months since we moved in, and we still don’t have rugs or curtains anywhere. Hubs just got the dryer vented today. I had intended to finish the big upstairs bedroom by now. As of today, it still has an air mattress and puppy-dog spotted floor (painted that way… don’t worry, there’s nothing gross up there). I mean, I got the walls and trim painted. But… it’s a far cry from being done.

So... I don’t have a lot to report. I’ve been making yummy meals and painting the upstairs when I’m not taking our daughter to the potty, reading her books, cleaning or doing laundry. It’s been a boring week around here, frugally speaking, and I expect more of the same during the next few months. Sorry, guys.

So, yeah. And I have more bad news. Last week I was trying to free up space on my phone, and accidentally deleted five months’ worth of photos. Permanently. Thankfully my husband had taken pictures of our daughter and our house renovation, so we still have those. But all of my “before” room pictures? Gone. Which totally stinks. But maybe I can squeeze my in-laws for some. Sigh.

Okay. So.

I did a uploaded a short Youtube video on Saturday that had some clips from the past month. There would have been a lot more, but like I said… deleted. And it’s probably okay that the video is short, since it ended up taking four hours to upload to Youtube.

​Apart from that, I thought I would share a simple fall/winter meal idea with you.

We have been eating a lot of soup lately. The meal pictured at the top of this post is a hearty soup with homemade fruit cups. The soup is convenient because you can add whatever “in-season” vegetables and meat you want. I put turkey, kale, and carrots in this soup. The fruit cups are the same. In this version I put little mandarin slices and pomegranate arils. If you have a good Pyrex set like I do, you can make the fruit cups ahead of time and store them in the fridge.

Leftover soup is easy to freeze. Just ladle it into wide-mouth mason jars (leaving about a 2” headspace) and loosely screw on some lids. Be careful about where you put it in the freezer. I keep my freezing jars in a “jar box”. You can probably make your own jar box with a plastic box and cardboard to separate the jars.

In a week or two, pull out that soup again, thaw it out and heat it up! Then prepare whatever fruit you have on hand, put it in the tiny glass bowls, and you have another simple, easy winter meal!

Note: as I said at the beginning of this post, it has been (and will continue to be, as long as we’re still working on our house) difficult for me to come up with extra “frugal accomplishments” each week. It’s not that I don’t do frugal things, but I struggle with photographing and keeping track of them, then spending an hour or two every week writing down the details. Instead of doing a long post on here, I may switch to making vlogs for the time being. I think this will bring you better, more usable content each week. I say "more usable" for two reasons:

1. Instead of writing "I made soup this week", I'll be able to show you how I made it, what I put in it, etc. This is the kind of detail I don't have time to go into when I put together a blog post.

2. My ideas will be more accessible to people like myself, who don't make time to read blogs. If something isn't in a video or podcast, or on Instagram, I just don't read it. There are so many "hands on" things I have to do in a day. When I do get a chance to sit down and read, I'm reading a physical paperback, not anything on the internet. Sadly, blogs have fallen off the radar for me. Happily, there are many interesting Youtube channels I can listen to while doing dishes or folding laundry, and a handful of podcasts that I listen to while painting upstairs. The podcasts take more concentration to listen to, so Youtube seems to be my "go to" content source when it comes to all things homemaking.

3. Oh yeah- there's one more reason I plan on switching to video. I'll actually put out more content! Video is something I can do with my daughter tagging along, and it doesn't take much extra effort.

What are your thoughts? Yay or nay? Video or blog posts? I don't plan to quit writing forever, but during this busy season I'm struggling to do it all. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

-Bethany

1. Groceries: I spent almost $90.00 on groceries this week. This is a lot more than we usually spend, but…. Those fantastic holiday sales have started!!! Some of the best deals I got were pasta for $0.50 per pound, cheese for $2.50 per pound, and cottage cheese for $1.10 (24 oz.), turkey breast for $1.00/lb. I also bought some cereal for $1.27 per box, which is inexpensive, but not the best deal I’ve ever found. I have a love/hate relationship with cereal. I really love to eat it. But it’s not very healthy. It’s very expensive when compared to other grains. But rather inexpensive when compared to chips, Little Debbies and other snack foods that we sometimes buy. 

Other things I bought were sour cream, grapes, a bell pepper and a pomegranate; all on sale. I used a coupon for the pomegranate, so that only cost $1.50 (cheap for our area). I found some marked-down lunch meat that I will use on a road trip we’re planning.

I harvested kale, swiss chard, endive and spinach from the garden. I also started some sprouts this week, since the garden pickin’s are getting more slim.  

2. Cooking: I cooked part of the pork butt that I bought last week, in the Instant Pot. It was AMAZING!!! If I ever see that cut of meat again, I will buy more. We ate some of it like a roast, and some with pasta. It would be perfect for pulled pork.

I also baked some biscotti to have with tea, coffee and cocoa this holiday season. I haven’t made biscotti in a long time, but they turned out so yummy. I froze half to eat later.

3. Kids’ stuff: my sister-in-law dropped off some clothes and a LOT of shoes for our little girl. The shoes spanned three sizes, so those will last for a while. There was also a beautiful dress in the box that will be perfect for next summer.

4. Book: I borrowed a book from the library’s interloan system. It’s a book related to my never-ending local history research; exactly what I was looking for! So I was super excited to find that.

5. OCC: We packed two shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. I was able to fill each box (for 10-14 y/o boys... their most under-served demographic) for about $15.00, not counting the shipping fee. We found an AMAZING deal on pocketed T-shirts; one of the clearance packages at Walmart had been marked down from $15.00 to $3.00. We picked out a set of matchbox cars for the “wow” toy ($5.00) and filled the rest of the box with personal care items (combs, toothbrushes, washcloth, soap), school supplies (pens, pencils, highlighter, notebook, eraser, pencil sharpener, etc… purchased at back-to-school sales) and inexpensive toys from the Dollar Tree, which included marbles and a pack of miniature dominoes. Some non-toy items were work gloves and a multi-purpose screwdriver tool from Walmart. I made drawstring bags for the loose school items, personal care items, and marbles. A lot of the items I was able to purchase in packs, and then split up the pack between two boxes. Last year we only packed one box, and it was much more expensive.

That’s about it for this week. As usual I line-dried laundry, cooked from scratch, etc. We’re still working on potty training, so that takes up time. Sometimes I get to the end of a day and think, what did I actually do? As in, how did I move forward today? Usually by the end of the week I feel like I’ve got something done, but lately it seems like I've been chasing my tail a lot. :/

Til next time,
-Bethany

​Hi everyone! I don’t have a lot to report, as most of this week’s activities were just a continuation of last week’s. But here are some things:

1. Groceries: I went to Kroger this week and bought a lot of pantry fillers. You can see the haul below:

I spent under $20.00 on everything. The roast was $9.16, the butter was a little over $2.00, the pasta was something like $0.50 each, sour cream was $1.00 (I know it's the wrong brand... this was a stand-in for what I actually bought), cereal was $0.99/box, and I believe the onions were $1.50.

I also froze and canned the venison we harvested from a road-kill deer last week. I canned most of the chunk meat and froze the backstrap in steaks. We already have a lot of ground venison from a deer that my BIL gave us last month.

I'm so happy to have a basement for food storage. I have a shelf down there divided into 6 parts, where I can keep dry goods and canned goods for the next 6 months. Last week I brought October's remaining jars upstairs and dumped the ones I knew I wouldn't use. I still have some spiced plums from October that I don't have the heart to throw away, but I don't really like them, either. What would you do with spiced plums?

2. Thrifting: Volunteers of America had their 50% off sale this week. I got quite a few things:

-A book for me.
-Three books for our daughter. We have a good selection of books at home, but I’m just tired of reading them. Seriously, I can quote those books better than my favorite movies. These new books were just $0.30 each, and have a good storyline, morals and illustrations. I’m okay with buying a book and donating it again if it doesn’t fit that criteria. Little Golden Books are usually a good choice, but I’ve even passed on some of those; especially the ones with trademarked “characters”: Sesame Street, Disney movies, etc. I don’t have a beef with characters, but I do prefer a clean, vintage aesthetic over a cartoon-y one.

​-Ark toy for our daughter. I’ve been wanting to buy her an ark for her animals and little people. This was $2.50. Not exactly cheap for a thrift store toy, but I believe it was a good value for the money. As cute as they are, eventually I want to replace the wooden animals with plastic ones that match her others, and the wooden Noah with a peg person Noah. 

​-Several square baskets. I only buy square baskets for storage, because they fit together much more easily than circular ones.

-Boots for our daughter in a size up. I think they were $1.50. I’ve been surprised at how “expensive” used kids clothes are, but thrift store shoes are less than 10% the price of new kid shoes. So I’ll take it.

​-A lamp…post. It still needs a shade, so it’s just the metal post. It cost $4.00, but it works. I really liked the bronze finish. After I bought it, we went to Walmart and I was disappointed to see whole lamps for just $10.00. We bought one. Then we got it out of the box, and I realized why it was only $10.00. Hubs threw me one of the shades. “Try breaking this!” he said. It bounced off the floor. Dumb globe wasn’t glass, it was cheap plastic! In fact, the whole thing was cheap plastic, but I guess it won’t hurt anybody if it falls over. LOL.

3. House projects: we moved the washer upstairs, and Hubs hooked up the dryer. YAY!!! Now I have a functional (if not completed) laundry room! Our cabinet guy also put the stained glass insert into our corner cupboard, and the last of the cabinet hardware was purchased and installed. I know I promised before-and-after pics last week, BUT…

I forgot about this thing. More decisions. While we are definitely past the hardest part of moving and renovating, there is still so much more I want to do. Decorating seems to compete with getting the house functional. I think if we make a little bit of functional progress and a little bit of decorating progress each week, I’ll have this thing done by the time I die. HA!

I hope you all had a wonderful week!
Til next time,
-Bethany

In my last Frugal Accomplishments post, I mentioned the book, Stop Acting Rich by Thomas Stanley. It was such an interesting and thought-provoking read (or, in my case, “listen”). I'm just going to jump in with some thoughts.
 
In this book, he put “rich people” into several categories:

1. Aspirationals: typically people who earn a lot of money, and spend it on status symbols and lifestyle purchases. They might look rich, but they’re not actually millionaires. You and I probably know a LOT more aspirationals than those who are truly wealthy.

2. Next-Door Millionaires: people who don’t seem particularly rich, but they have more than a million dollars in non-house assets. I know the term “millionaire” has come to mean less and less because of inflation, and also since many people include home value in their net worth. On Dave Ramsey’s “millionaire theme hour” he often interviews millionaires who have just one or two million in assets, half a million of that is in their house, and many of them are in their 60s and 70’s. I don’t think that is the kind of millionaire that Mr. Stanley is talking about. He mentions a lot of decamillionaires (people with 10 million or more) in his next-door stories. About 2.5% of the U.S. population are millionaires (not including home value in their net worth). 

3. The Glittering Rich: people who look like millionaires and ARE actually millionaires, because they earn vastly more than they can spend. This group of people earn in excess of 2 million per year, and have a net worth of over 20 million dollars.

Somewhere between the next-door millionaires and the glittering rich are people who ARE millionaires, but also buy status symbols because they feel a need to be recognized as special. Mr. Stanley said that salespeople in particular fall into this category (because they don’t have accomplishments to point back to, as would a business owner, author, etc.) as well as those who grew up poor and don’t want anything to do with “frugality”. These people are still rich (typically they work very hard), but not as efficient at producing wealth as the more frugal types. For example, the “Porsche millionaire” might earn $250k per year while the “Toyota millionaire” earns just $200k, but they both have the same net worth in dollars.

Here is the book’s main point: if you earn an average—or even higher than average—income, you can either ACT rich (by society's definition) or BE rich, but probably not both. Separating truth from myth makes me feel a whole lot better about being frugal, even “extreme” frugal. As we are continually saving and building wealth, sometimes I feel like we should be “acting our wage” as Dave Ramsey would put it. The question that Hubs and I face more often now is: when we should make an upgrade? Is it wise to buy a nicer car—something with no rust and a few less miles? Should I start shopping at Kohls instead of wearing thrift store picks and hand-me-downs? Should I start buying more organic food? Many people don’t have to ask these things because they just buy whatever they can afford, and that’s the end. But if you save more than you spend… then you have to decide what to do with the extra.

Stop Acting Rich has given me permission to just be myself, regardless of what I *could* be spending. And I really like being frugal. I would much rather grow organic kale and spinach and lettuce than buy it. I like putting together outfits with free hand-me-down clothes. I like our rusty car. It's comfy and warm in the winter. I like drinking water at restaurants. Chain restaurants. Of course I like nice things as well, but oftentimes the expensive stuff doesn’t make me any happier than the inexpensive (or free) stuff, and why not use extra dollars for a noble cause? Our church just put up an announcement last week about the popular Christmas “shoebox” gifts that go to poor kids around the world. I would far rather spend $20.00 or $30.00 on a shoebox than a new shirt from Kohls. OR, dump that money in a fund, forget about it, and in 10 years fill two shoeboxes!

I think what I love about this book most is, again, that it separates the truth from lies. Thomas Stanley uses statistics to build his argument, and statistics have a way of revealing the truth that fake news, or even personal experience, does not. Fake news would tell you that rich people aren’t paying their fair share of taxes. Fake news would tell you that rich people are stingy and greedy and mean. And while the affluent skew toward frugal, statistics say that a majority of wealthy people donate a much higher percentage of their wealth (10% or more) to charity than people who earn high incomes but wear, drive around, and live in their wealth (who give just 1% or less). Another interesting statistic is that most “next-door” millionaires live in Bible belt territory, not the more liberal east and west coast regions. The vast majority are married, and have been married to the same person for 30+ years. 50% of millionaire wives do not work outside the home, and of the half that do, most do not work full time. All of this information tells me that next-door millionaires are politically conservative, as a whole, and hold traditional values.

WARNING: Political thoughts ahead!

I think these statistics are interesting when compared with the current FIRE (Financial Independence, Early Retirement) movement that has popped up in the last ten years or so. This movement closely mimics what it takes to become a next-door millionaire: you earn way more than the general population, and spend far less. For many people, this means working for about ten years and saving at least a million dollars, thereby becoming a millionaire by age 30 or so. What’s interesting? The FIRE demographic is pretty much opposite of the next-door millionaires’. There are a lot of childless, liberal millenials stashing cash in order to become rich and travel the world. But the movement seems to be losing a lot of steam. I don’t think it’s the numbers that are causing the problem. I think statistics alone will tell you that being liberal and being rich are often mutually exclusive. 

Why? Statistically, Democrats have a higher yearly income, but don’t give as much or keep as much as Republicans. The author makes a point here that higher education could somehow correlate to why liberals aren’t as wealthy. In my opinion, divorce and broken family relationships could play a role. Republicans are more likely to stay married—and happily married—than Democrats. One could argue that Republicans report more happiness and give more money because they HAVE more money. But why do they have more? Thomas Stanley gives us the truth, via statistics. While I’m not saying that ALL Democrats are this and ALL Republicans are that, I’m saying that you can pull objective truth from statistics and come to your own conclusion. Kudos to Mr. Stanley for blowing the top off of fake news.

Well, that’s the end of my brief book review! I hope you feel inspired to read a good book, yourself. These colder months are a great time to cuddle up with a book, blanket and cup of tea. Recently I listened to a great podcast about how to read a book. I gleaned a lot from it, and I hope you can too.

If you want to read or listen to a lot of books for just a little money, use my referral link to get yourself a Scribd subscription. It’s something like $9.00 per month. You can read or listen to all of the books you want, and share the subscription with your spouse (so, just over $1.00 per week per person, for multiple ebooks and audiobooks!). If you want a free way to read Stop Acting Rich and almost any other book, use your library’s interloan system. It will take a while and you won’t have access to thousands of books at a time, but… FREE. There’s a lot of stuff you can do with $9.00 if you’re not a voracious reader.

Hi everyone! I had another good week in terms of saving and productivity.

1. Groceries: We spent $27.81 at Kroger this week. Not going to lie; most of it was junk food, minus $7.00 worth of avocados, parmesan cheese and bacon. One of the perks of eating cheap is that one week of junk won’t break the bank. I harvested swiss chard, kale, endive, spinach and parsley from my various gardens. I also noticed a giant pear on our pear tree, but it was at the top of the tree. So I dragged a ladder out of the shop, and picked the pear. It was pretty much a perfect pear. I also picked some stray apples out of the orchard.

2. Made a “free” $8.00 photo book on Shutterfly. They were running a special this week, so the night of the deadline I sat down and put together a baby book for our Princess. Of course you have to pay for shipping, so that's where the $8.00 comes from.

3. Sewing: I put new velcro on a pair of toddler shoes, repaired two pairs of toddler pants and one sweater for myself. I also fixed a basket liner that I made earlier this year.

4. Worked on a weekly schedule: I reinstated Laundry Day (Thursday) and Cleaning Day (Friday) this week. Before the craziness of our house project started, I had a wonderful weekly schedule that kept my house running smoothly. Since May, that schedule gradually deteriorated until I did laundry every other day “when needed” and cleaning almost never. 

I forgot how wonderful line-drying indoors can be. I was able to wash and hang three loads of laundry before noon on Thursday, and had the afternoon to rearrange our living room for the new couches and put together the bar stools that came that day. All of the new furniture is wonderful! 

Friday was likewise awesome, even though it was mostly cleaning. I pulled all of the inspection stickers off of the doors, put little screw plugs in, and generally deep-cleaned the kitchen. Then I vacuumed the whole downstairs so everything was nice and clean for the weekend. It felt SO GOOD.

5. I listed a lot of vintage patterns on Ebay. October and November is the time to do it! My patterns already have a bid, and the auction doesn't end until Sunday.

6. Money books: I read a little pamphlet this week called Myths of the Great Depression that I got at a garage sale for free. You, too, can read the whole thing for free here. I also listened to a fantastic book called Stop Acting Rich by Thomas Stanley, author of the bestseller Millionaire Next Door. This book was a more in-depth look at millionaires and multi-millionaires; even more stories and (sometimes sarcastic) commentary from the author. Oh, man. This book was SO GOOD. I was going to put some thoughts in this blog post, but it ballooned into a rambling book review. So I will probably post that later this week.

7. Reviewed some of our financial statements in preparation for the end of the tax year. I found an issue that might have cost us $1500.00, and also found a significant amount of fees that can be eliminated. Both of those things will need more work before I can claim them as an "accomplishment", but if resolved, in coming years they will pay big (as Trump would say, "YUGE") dividends.

I think that’s about it for now! I hope you all have a great week!!
-Bethany

​Hello everyone! I felt like I had a pretty good week.

1. Groceries: We spent $40.00 at Walmart this week. I bought things like tomato paste, cheese, eggs, dry beans, chicken thighs, tortillas, crackers, milk and tuna fish. I’m working on our meal plan for November, which will feature root vegetables, hardy greens (we’ll see how hardy they really are!), venison and chicken. Also probably some apples and pears. The chicken thighs were marked down $0.66 per bag, so I saved $1.32. Not bad for something that is already so cheap!

I pulled parsnips and potatoes out of the garden this week. I also made cheese from some milk that was about to expire.

2. ​Organizing: I almost finished organizing my library/office area upstairs. I went through all of my old homemaking binders and combined them into one binder. While I was sorting everything, I found some cleaning schedules that I’ll start using soon. I’ll have to do a lot more cleaning since this place is much bigger than the last one. I also made new morning, afternoon and evening schedules (more like "order of events"). I usually have to change those anyway when the weather changes, as we spend more time indoors during the winter months.

3. Toddler outing: on Thursday Hubs’ was out of town, so I decided to take Princess to a local Western store where I had a gift card I could use. I thought I might buy her some animals for her toy collection, but they didn’t have what I was looking for. We spent about 20 minutes looking at all of the merchandise; saddles, boots, hats, etc., and admiring the reindeer and longhorn mounts on the wall. I fished two quarters out of my purse and let her ride the mechanical horse. They also had a mechanical bull, but I was out of quarters. After going through the whole store, I didn’t find anything we needed. I did find some things that would make nice baby gifts, so I will save the gift card and use it for that purpose.

After that, we went to our credit union building, which was having a member appreciation day. I got to catch up with a friend who works there, plus Princess brought home a free pumpkin, lip balm, donut and balloon. The whole cost for our outing was $0.50 plus gas ($1.00 or so), and we came home with some free stuff!

4. Sewing: I finished two hand towels that I began several weeks ago. These are very easy to make with one potholder (needs a loop) and a dish towel. It wasn’t a particularly frugal project since I bought the supplies new at Walmart (about $3.00 per towel). However, I needed new hand towels and similar ones go for $6.00 or more on Amazon. So in that way, I guess it was frugal. I look forward to making more colors that I can switch out for different seasons. In the future I might make my own potholders, since the ones at Walmart are rectangles and I prefer squares with a corner loop—the video doesn't recommend it, but I like the look better—for this project. ​

5. Work on the house: I primed one of the guest bedrooms this week. 

We also bought a dryer used on Facebook Marketplace and moved our old washer over here to the new house. Right now it’s in the basement; not its final resting place, but at least now I don’t have to walk next door to do laundry! The dryer isn’t hooked up yet, so I’m using drying racks instead (so... saving $0.45 per load!). One of the drying racks is an ancient, massive one that my mother-in-law gave me. It’s so sturdy that our toddler can climb on it and it won’t break. Wonderful for drying jeans.

Lastly, we did something that wasn’t frugal: we bought new couches. We had a twice-handed-down couch set at the apartment for five years, so neither of us were sorry to hand over the cash for a new set. Hubs signed up for a credit card (that we won’t use, of course) to save over $100.00. Also, instead of buying bar stools at the store for $60.00 or more per piece, we bought similar ones online for $45.00 each. They haven't arrived yet. We have faith that they will be okay. ;)

We’ve spent a LOT of money on this new house, but I think it’s important to mention that we spent very little on the last house. All of those missed decorating opportunities got rolled into a figurative sinking fund for this place. If you spend a lot of money repainting, redecorating and refurnishing rentals, it's money you will never get back. Before we got married, I read a book that recommended newly married couples establish a decorating budget. I agree... AND, I think that budget should be as close to $0.00 as possible until you have a permanent (or, as permanent as possible) home. Save the money! It's worth it!!! Not only will you be able to purchase higher quality items later, but the $0.00 budget will encourage creativity and contentment for the time being.  

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That's about it! It's so good to feel productive again. We'll be slowly working on more house projects all winter, but the major purchases have been made and now I can begin to think about "fun" things like lamps, rugs, artwork, etc. The kitchen is very close to being "before-and-after" ready. There is one glass cabinet insert that needs to be installed, and we need to buy two glass globes (lamps??) for a light fixture. I expect to be sharing some pictures here in a week or two!!!

Til next time,
-Bethany

It's beginning to look a lot like FALL around here! Leaves are changing and it's beginning to get colder. We had our first hard frost a few nights ago.​

1. Food: We ate greens, longbeans and a few other things from the garden. I also used up some apples and pears in the orchard. I made a good amount of apple chips for this winter. Lastly, I made bread. Here’s a picture of my main grocery haul:

It was $27.87. We also spent $10.00 on winter squash at a local produce stand, and $2.00 at the Dollar General for my favorite fall treat (Little Debbies Pumpkin Delights). I didn’t mention it in the last post, but several weeks ago my brother-in-law shot a deer and let us keep it (he didn’t have time to do the processing). We were able to put about 40 lbs. of meat in the freezer for free!

I’m continuously amazed at how much I can get done (or, have the motivation to do) with the help of the dishwasher, microwave, etc. Even the oven has tools like a timer, that help me accomplish more, faster and easier. I made at least three meals this week that were time-intensive, but with the help of my kitchen tools—new ones, and ones I’ve had for years—I felt like I could tackle them and still have time to do other things during the day. With so many new possibilities, and especially with my new fall and spring gardens, I feel like going back to the $10.00/week plan just for fun.

2. Kids’ stuff: I read a popular parenting book and also a preschool homeschooling book. I wasn’t too excited about the parenting book so I won’t share the title, but I feel like I got a lot out of the other book; Early Years; a Charlotte Mason Preschool Handbook. I found it at a garage sale last month.

For those interested in homeschooling on a budget, I feel like Charlotte Mason is a good option. There is a heavy emphasis on nature and reading, which is pretty much free, as opposed to video or text-based curriculum (used is always cheaper, but many homeschool parents pay hundreds of dollars per child, per year for basic curriculum). Some of the other aspects of CM (fine art, classical music) can get expensive if you chose to take your child to lessons. For the preschool years, they recommend establishing routines, obedience to parents, nature walks, free play, and other easy-to-implement activities. I love that many of those things make my life as a parent easier, too. Even the music and art isn’t too expensive at this point; classical music is free to listen to on Pandora, Youtube, Amazon Music, etc. And I’ve been collecting small art prints (mostly from cheap books and postcards) to display in our daughter’s room or look at with her. 

The other frugal thing I did this week was cover our old world map with contact paper, so I can use it as a kind of floor mat for our toddler. I got it years ago at a garage sale for 10 cents. Since then, the edges have developed tears and spots, so we’ll probably buy a new one for the wall at some point. 

3. Momentos: At 90 years old, my grandpa is finally at the point where he needs round-the-clock care, and went to live in a nursing home. He left a little house full of things that needed to be cleaned out for new tenants. I picked out a few delightful little treasures:

Looking over all of the glassware, trinkets, games, books and pictures, I thought about how many years it took to collect those things. Now, fifty-plus years later, my grandparents’ home is being dissembled and taken away, piece by piece. This eventually happens to every home*. A housewife spends decades getting her house “just right”, painting, organizing, crafting, collecting trinkets, only to have that work undone, eventually. I hope that, as a homemaker, I can spend my time building memories and improving the lives of others, storing up “treasures in heaven” that won’t be taken away piece by piece when I pass on.

Til next time,
-Bethany

*Unless it’s Biltmore. Or some Presidents’ home that has to be reassembled for the sake of museum-loving folks like myself. ;)