Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Credit Crunch

With the economy turning the way it is, it is more important than ever that we all take a good hard look at our spending practices. Do we really need that I-Phone? Is it really necessary to drive thru the burger joint or can you make burgers, or anything else for that matter, at home? Do you really need a new pair of shoes or do you just want them?

With Christmas coming up, it will be more important than ever to watch how and where you spend. Advertising will be aimed at getting you to go on one last spending spree before the New Year. Key indicators are showing that what has happened to the housing market will happen to the credit card industry in early 2009. So that credit card you have been struggling to pay off will more than likely try to bury you in the spring. When credit companies go under, it will be because too many of their cardholders can't make their payments and they have no cash on hand to meet the company's expenses, like payroll, building rent, electric, etc. and they will either need a bailout like the housing market, or they will collapse as well. That will mean that no one will be able to get new credit and the credit you already have will suffer from extreme interest rates.

The best way to handle this is to get out of debt NOW. If you do not have any credit cards or pay them off every month, why not just spot using them altogether? Just don't have one. If you have relatively low balances, pay them off completely and stop using them. Paying for something on credit just isn't worth the interest rates in the long run. If you find something that is on sale for $100 dollars and it looks like a really good deal, you buy it on the credit card that you are already carrying a balance on, at 19% interest, you are paying $119.00 for it the second month, $141.61 the third month, $168.51 the forth month, etc, until it is paid off. That $100 purchase doesn't look like such a good deal anymore, does it. And that is considering you don't have a late fee in there somewhere that causes your interest rate to skyrocket upward of 25-30%. Best bet is to just stop using credit.

If you can't pay cash for it , don't buy it. And even if you can pay cash, do you really need it?

Not putting our lives on Credit

With the economy turning the way it is, it is more important than ever that we all take a good hard look at our spending practices. Do we really need that I-Phone? Is it really necessary to drive thru the burger joint or can you make burgers, or anything else for that matter, at home? Do you really need a new pair of shoes or do you just want them?

With Christmas coming up, it will be more important than ever to watch how and where you spend. Advertising will be aimed at getting you to go on one last spending spree before the New Year. Key indicators are showing that what has happened to the housing market will happen to the credit card industry in early 2009. So that credit card you have been struggling to pay off will more than likely try to bury you in the spring. When credit companies go under, it will be because too many of their cardholders can't make their payments and they have no cash on hand to meet the company's expenses, like payroll, building rent, electric, etc. and they will either need a bailout like the housing market, or they will collapse as well. That will mean that no one will be able to get new credit and the credit you already have will suffer from extreme interest rates.

The best way to handle this is to get out of debt NOW. If you do not have any credit cards or pay them off every month, why not just stop using them altogether? Just don't have one. If you have relatively low balances, pay them off completely and stop using them. Paying for something on credit just isn't worth the interest rates in the long run. If you find something that is on sale for $100 dollars and it looks like a really good deal, you buy it on the credit card that you are already carrying a balance on, at 19% interest, you are paying $119.00 for it the second month, $141.61 the third month, $168.51 the forth month, etc, until it is paid off. That $100 purchase doesn't look like such a good deal anymore, does it. And that is considering you don't have a late fee in there somewhere that causes your interest rate to skyrocket upward of 25-30%. Best bet is to just stop using credit. If you can't pay cash for it , don't buy it.

We paid off all of our credit cards a couple of years ago. We refinanced the house at a lower interest rate and a shorter term. We knocked 2 years and 2.5% off of our mortgage and managed to cash out some of the equity to pay off 4 of our 5 credit cards. We were left with 1 card that had a 5k+ balance. By not having the other cards to pay, we were able to pay that one on time every month. A large cash gift from the in-laws allowed us to pay that one off as well as the truck. So now all we have left is the mortgage. And we try to pay extra on that principle as well, when we can.

This has allowed us to build up some savings. Now if something happens to my husband's job, we have enough to get by for a couple of months until he can either find a new job or we can sell the house and move. Or in an emergency comes up, we do have some reserves.

All of this means that we cannot go out every weekend, or buy the latest gadget on the market, but you know what, we don't really need it. And it feels much better to have the reserves in the bank than to have the coolest video phone on the market. Especially now.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Spending too much

We have been spending too much money lately. Between all of the things the kids have to have for school, like club, band, and orchestra t-shirts, year books, school pictures, poster board, art supplies, etc. and the stuff they just need, like clothes, a new amp, cords, getting the guitar fixed, books, the list goes on, we have spent a lot of cash this month. We have also taken a couple of necessary weekend trips that cost us a couple of hundred each. None of that was really budgeted because I wasn't really thinking about it at the time so it sort of snuck up on us. And a work related cookout we had to buy extra groceries for.

Then there was the $800 payment to the doctor's office. And the personal property taxes. And the vehicle insurance. A boy scout canoe trip. Food at the ball game my son has every Thursday night. Tags are due in October for the car. Christmas is coming up. All of the fun things that are darned near impossible to budget.

It sometimes seems impossible to save any money. We actually have done pretty well in the last year, savings wise. It is just that we could do more. For a couple of months early in the year, we conserved every penny we could find.

And slowly over the course of the year, we have started slipping back into our old habits. Buying things we don't really need, eating out too much, getting things on the spur of the moment instead of thinking them out. That sort of thing.

We must get back to doing the basics again. Only the necessities. Making things instead of buying them. And deciding priorities.

Granted, some things are unavoidable, but if we are careful where we spend, we will have the cash on hand for them when they arise.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

The Bail out is a bad idea

Well, IMHO, all of this is just a way to give corporate CEOs that don't have enough brains to come in out of the rain, much less run a company, a great big paycheck to get out of the business. There is no way that any right thinking business person would have approved all of those high risk loans without some sort of greed coming into play.

If your mortgage debt is more than 30% of your income, you will have a hard time paying for it. If you have several mortgages, like for flipping houses, with adjustable rates, you will be just buggered if you can't sell them fast enough. Any bank that would give more than 2 mortgages to a single individual is just asking for trouble.

As far as I am concerned, the banks were asking for this by their own greed.

Now how does that affect the rest of us? Badly. The banks don't have any money to loan, so getting a loan for improvements like new fencing or upgrading that tractor will be tough. And the really bad part is that when a bank fails, businesses who depend on those banks do not have the operating capital it needs to keep the doors open. So there are fewer jobs. Fewer jobs means more people defaulting on their mortgages. Vicious cycle.

As to a bail out...hmmm.. .well, that is a tough one. Should we reward the banks who gave all of the risky loans in the first place? Should we bail them out so that businesses across the country can keep the jobs that we all depend on in the long run? Tough call. Personally, I think we should just suck it up and take the massive hit to the economy and rebuild it the same way we did after the Great Depression. I do not want my tax dollars lining the pockets of some Wall Street desk jockey who liked to play at short selling. And if we do this bail out, you can guarantee that our grandchildren' s grandchildren will still be paying this thing off.

Washington can talk all it wants about $700 BILLION but to them, it is just transfering numbers from one column in a spreadsheet to another column. It doesn't really mean anything. There is no actual transfer of funds. And the rich get richer. And we get to pay for it.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

It's County Fair Time

For the first time in about 25 years, I entered something in the county fair. I have been canning this year for the first time since I was a kid, so I had a serious learning curve. Between trying to remember how we did it when I was helping my mom growing up, and using my Ball Blue Book and the really old Bernardin book my mom gave me, I think I have a pretty good handle on it now. So I entered 15 jars of home canned goodness in the fair.

This process actually started back in the late spring. I figured that if I was going to go to the trouble of canning, I might as well make them nice enough to show. So for each item I canned, I tried to carefully place the food, in a pleasing manner, in at least 1 jar in each batch. Some things just didn't come out very pretty though. My beans boiled out too much juice and have turned dark on top. They are still perfectly edible, but they are not fair-worthy. And I had some other things that I didn't get packed tightly enough and they floated. Like some of the peaches. They will still be fine for making pies but, again, not good enough for the fair.

Toward the end of August, I called the county extension office about how to go about entering. They said that I had to pre-register each jar by September 1 to get them in. So I went up there, got the forms, and began sifting through the jars to find the most perfect ones. I had a jar of green beans somewhere that I had lined up straight that I couldn't find in my mess of a pantry but I still finished up with 15 jars to enter.

I had to take them to the fairgrounds between 2 and 5 pm on Sunday the 14th. But we had a problem. We were going to be in Jonesboro that weekend on a college hunting trip. You know, the campus tour, admissions and financial aid folks telling us the process, tailgating and a football game on Saturday night. And in addition to all of that, we got to deal with my mother-in-law. So we got up early Sunday morning and made the drive back (2.5 hours by the way) so I could get my stuff entered. When we got up there, it seemed there was more competition than in previous years. That had me worried. Like I said, I haven't canned anything in 25 years and this was the first time all on my own. But I left them there and tried not to get my hopes up too much.

Judging was on Monday. The fair opened on Tuesday evening. We went last night to see just how I fared against everyone else. While I was frantically searching the shelves for my jars, the kids pointed out that one of my jars was on the table in front of us. It had a red, white and blue ribbon with a nice rosette that said "Best of Show" and a certificate with my name (well, it was my name but spelled wrong, go figure) on it. I got a Best of Show for carrots, of all things. Out of all of the veggies that had been entered, I took top prize. I was stunned. I was expecting maybe red ribbons. I don't think I have stopped grinning since I saw it.

Everything I entered got a ribbon of one color or another, mostly reds like I expected, but I got 3 or 4 blues and a couple of white too. I then proceeded to call every one I know. My Mom told me that she was proud of me, my Dad told me that I shouldn't let it go to my head, and my sister-in-law just said that she knew that I was going to win so why was I so surprised. My hubbie, bless his heart, had to deal with me saying "guess what? Best of Show!" all night.

Now I have to decide if I want to take those carrots on to the state fair.

Who knows, I might just win there too. If we don't eat them before then.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

9-11 Remembered

Well, it is 9-11 again. And for some reason, that saddens me. Seven years ago today, some extremist terrorists attacked our country in a way that we could never have imagined. We were, as a nation, horror struck and in shock that this could have happened. And for a few weeks, Americans came together for a common cause in a way that hasn't been seen since Pearl Harbor. We were united in anger, and in sorrow. The nation donated food, water, services, our prayers and our blood to the rescue workers who frantically searched for survivors in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Most of us don't really spend a lot of time thinking about freedom and what it takes to stay that way. Unless you have a friend or family member in the military, it doesn't really touch you any more. We have, more or less, forgotten why there are long lines at airport security. Why we need passports to go to Canada or Mexico. And why our men and women are still serving overseas.

You can complain about the war in the Middle East, or gas prices, or the President, or even the price of eggs, but if you actually stop and think about it, you have the RIGHT to complain because you are Americans. If it were not for the men and women in the service, you would not have that right any more. You have the right to have a car and drive where ever you want to go, you have the right to vote for the President and if you don't like the way he runs the country you can vote for the other person next time, you can go to the local grocery store and buy whatever food you want at just about any time you want. People in other countries do not have that right. And we all take it for granted. We have gotten so used to our rights as Americans, that we don't even think about it any more.

But 2,974 people had to die to remind us that we are free. And why it is important that we are free.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Getting ready

I have given a lot of thought into making a lifestyle change. My husband and I are in general agreement on being more self sufficient and not depending so much on how much money is in the bank. I have spent the better part of a year doing research on how to make this happen.

The first thing we have to do is find a place where we can have a couple of acres, but not really more than 10, to have a bigger garden and a place for some livestock. While this is possible to do in town, we really don't want to have neighbors complaining about our chickens or cows. Ideally, we would have enough house to have weekend guests without having to blow up air mattresses or have 3 or 4 kids to a bed. I would like a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house with a big kitchen, wood burning fireplace or wood stove, at least a small basement to use as a root cellar and/or game room, and a workshop of some sort.

The first thing I would work up would be a garden spot. It takes at least a year to get a garden spot worked up so that it will grow a good variety of food. I am actually thinking that a lot of smaller raised beds and multi-layer gardening is the way I want to go. I can grow more in less space and not have to spend so much time weeding and amending the soil. I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about all of this. I think this way, I can have a good variety of vegetables and still not kill myself trying to work it. I will also have some small fruit plants like raspberries and blueberries, grapes, a couple of fruit trees like peaches, apples, pears, and maybe apricots. Strawberries are another possibility. They do take a little bit more room so we will have to see about that. I really want an asparagus bed. We really love the stuff and it is just so expensive to buy retail. But it takes a lot of time to mature, at least 2 years, but after that, it can keep producing for up to 20 years. If you let it go to seed every now and then, it will reseed itself and you will have a constant supply for the rest of your life.

I have thought about keeping a hive or 2 of bees, for polination and for honey. The problem there is that I am allergic. Not dangerously so, but enough to swell up and itch like crazy. Not really sure my hubby would be up for the bees, but they would definately be useful. Maybe we could just keep them for the pollination and only rob the hives when I can talk him into it.

But anyway, the extra produce we could sell for a little spending money. I wouldn't really want to make a business out of it, but I just can't see us letting it go to waste. And any little bit of extra cash will be welcome.

The chickens will also provide a possible bit of extra income. Eggs always sell well and by free ranging the chickens, the eggs will taste better and be healtier than store bought. Even if I start my flock with only 10 hens and a couple of roosters, and allow at least 1 hen to brood and hatch a nest of eggs each year, I can double the size of the flock every year. If I want to use them as meat as well, I can start with 25 or so and after 4 to 6 months, take one or two a week for the freezer. It is really easy to raise chickens, as long as you can keep the coop clean and the predators out. And since we wouldn't use more than maybe 1/2 dozen eggs a week, and no more than a dozen a week, we would have eggs to spare. If a neighbor has a milk cow, we might could trade eggs for fresh milk.

A pig would also be nice to have around. A pig is a perfect converter of kitchen scraps to high quality fertilizer. And they grow relatively fast so any little piglets would be ready for the freezer in less than a year. If you have enough room to change pastures every year, you can have the pigs work your garden areas for you. They will loosen up the soil for you, fertilize it, and remove most or all of the roots and grasses to make it ready to plant. And after all of that, you will get a Christmas and Easter Ham, close to 20 pounds of bacon, several roasts, a big pile of chops and some really great ribs. And that isn't counting the sausage and sausage products. Since we do not eat the organ meats, they can be used as fish bait for even more variety in your meals.

A small amount of feed grains could be helpful if there is space for it. Feed corn, for one, could be used for more than just feed the critters. It can be used to make corn meal and hominy, or coursely chopped for the chickens and pigs. Wheat and oats would also be good for the livestock or the pantry. The problem with growing grains for feed is that it just isn't really cost effective for a small 5 to 10 acre farm to try and grow the grain and still have enough room for pasturage. But the corn could be grown simply as a suppliment to the forage instead of a main staple and it wouldn't take up too much space.

I hope to be able to convince my husband to hunt, at least some. Some venison, wild boar, turkey, doves and ducks would be a nice change occasionally. And except for the cost of the hunting lisence, the meat would be basically free.

Since I have a smoker, meat grinder, slicer, heavy duty mixer, and a good knowledge of herbs and an inexpensive source for casings, I can make our own sausages. Breakfast sausage and salami are VERY easy to make, and from those basics, I can also make bratworst, smoked sausages, and snack sticks.

My dehydrator can be used to dry onions, peppers, fruit, other veggies, and make jerky and fruit leathers. I can dry fresh herbs for both the kitchen and medicinal uses. I could even make yogurt and raise bread in it.

I can make butter from cream, I can preserve food by canning, freezing, smoking, and drying, I can cook over an open fire as well as on a wood, gas, or electric stove, I can make breads of all kinds, I can cure and smoke ham and bacon, I can sew and crochet, and if I had to, I could build a shelter and live in the woods. I can live well without electricity. I have done it before for a week or so at a time when the power was out, so I have no real problem doing it again. I can make my own soap and laundry detergent, and I have washed clothes on a washboard before, and could do it again if I had to. It wouldn't be fun, but I could do it.

Granted, I don't want to live at the subsistance level in a one roon shack, but living without the need for a grocery store or Wal-mart handy is a good feeling. And not having to spend a lot of money for food every week would allow us to live a much less stressful life.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Good Food is Better Than Trash Food

I know that I have harped before on the quality (or lack of it) of store bought food. But the more I read studies and hear the news about food born illnesses and contaminated meat and vegetables, the more I never want to enter a grocery store again.

As a society, we have institutionalized every aspect of our lives, right down to the foods we eat. All processed foods contain preservatives and, for some reason, high fructose corn syrup. Why does our bread need high fructose corn syrup? It only takes a spoonful of sugar or honey to make a loaf of bread. Is sugar really so expensive that a loaf of white bread from the store has to use altered sugar(fructose, dextrose, and glucose and all of other 'oses) to make a profit? And why are we eating so much bread anyway?

Wouldn't it just be easier and cheaper to fill up on high quality proteins like meats and beans, vegetable fibers like salads and fruit, whole grains like rice, oats and barley, and starches like potatoes and corn instead of serving a lot of breads that have been over processed and nutrition-deprived?

Our grandparents ate maybe 3 or 4 servings of bread a day as biscuits and corn bread, but had a lot of meats, fresh veggies, and whole grains. And you know what, they were a whole lot healthier for it. They also didn't sit around watching TV after a day of work. There were chores to do right up until dark. Then there was always stuff that needed doing inside.

Going to the gym for exercise was just laughable. There was plenty of exercise to be had in everyday living. Want to life weights? Go move a couple of bales of hay down out of the barn loft to feed the cows and mule( they weigh anywhere between 50 and 80 pounds). Want some movement to tone down those "luv handles"? Use a pitchfork to clean out the barn stalls. 30 minutes on the treadmill? Try chasing down the chicken that got out of the hen house before the dogs could get her. That takes some running.

It takes a lot of calories to work even a small farm. Just putting in a small garden is more daily exercise than most of us get. But the side affects are higher quality and freshest possible food you can get. And you will know what is in it or on it. So you are burning calories and eating better.

I remember going to my grandma's house for a week every summer. Breakfast was always bacon and/ or sausage, an egg or two, biscuits and gravy, and maybe a bowl of oats. Lunch was something like brown beans and ham or a fried pork steak, fried potatoes, any biscuits left from breakfast or cornbread if there wasn't any, and a glass of tea. Dinner would be something like chicken and dumplin's or a pork roast, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn on the cob, and a slice of pie or cake. And even after eating all of that in 1 day, we would sometimes sneak back into the kitchen before bedtime and get some more cake or a glass of cold buttermilk with crumbled corn bread in it.

Now that sounds like a lot of fat and calories for 1 day, but every bit of that was burned in the course of the day. There was always something to keep us busy. Rght after breakfast we started working outside. Hoeing the garden, feeding and watering the chickens, picking beans or berries, washing dishes, washing clothes and hanging them out, cooking and canning, sewing, helping Pawpaw in the shop. We didn't have time to sit and watch tv or get into too much trouble. And maybe that was the point. But we were always hungry come meal time.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that eating real food, regardless of the fat content, is better for you than filling up on empty calories that has no nutritional value. If you are hungry, by all means eat, but don't reach for a bag of chips or a Little Debbie. Grab a piece of fruit or some carrots. Instead of eating a couple of loaves of the fresh baked bread they give you at the steak house, get a side salad instead. Fill up on good fresh foods instead of just something to fill up that empty spot.

And for goodness sakes, stay away from processed foods.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Is our food killing us?

I have struggled with my weight for a number of years, and tried many different diets, only to have none of them really work. I think it is mainly because the so called "experts" keep changing their minds about what is actually healthy.

I read an article today that talked about how, since the FDA and USDA came up with the Food Pyramid back in the late '60's and early 70's, obesity has become epidemic. The recommended servings of grain(bread, pasta, cereals, etc) is 9-11 a day. And guess what, grains are carbohydrates. And on top of that, most of the flour used to make the things we eat is so over processed that they have to add the vitamins and minerals back into the flour after they mill it.

The article went on to state that since carbs turn to sugar as we metabolize the food, and the sugar spike causes insulin to be created to store that sugar as fat, the more sugar we have floating around in our bodies over the course of the day, the more fat gets stored, the more insulin is produced and the more weight we gain.

Now, lets think about this for a minute. If you eat the 9 to 11 servings of grains the government tells us is healthy, then we would have to be eating carbs just about all day. That means that we have a constant sugar rush going in our bodies. That much insulin being produced is bound to cause problems, not just with our weight, but on the organs themselves, which could cause diabetes and kidney problems.

Then there is the whole "fats" issue. Does anyone really know what the difference between a monounsaturated fat and transfat is? Or a saturated fat and a polyunsaturated fat? And why on earth is one better or worse than the other?

I have a theory on this, so bear with me. If a fat comes from a natural source, like butter, olive oil, lard, fish oils, etc., it is probably healthier than fats that come from unnatural sources like vegetable oils, margarine, and shortening. Why? Well, in my opinion, if it occurs naturally in the foods we eat, and we do not have to mechanically or chemically alter it to be able to use the fats, then it has to be better for us. In whole unhomogenized milk, the fat rises to the top and we call it cream. If we beat it around in a jug for a few minutes, it makes butter. No mechanical separation of the lipids to isolate specific compounds, no heat treating to alter its physical state, nothing added to stablize or preserve it. Just cream that has been beaten within an inch of its life. Nothing special added to it, unless you want to add a dash of salt, just for taste. Want olive oil, squeeze some olives. Out comes the oil. Nothing really fancy about that either. Lard is just the fatty tissue of pork that has been cut off the meat when it is butchered, then put in a pot and melted. If you put about an inch of water in the bottom, all of the impurities will cook out into the water and you will have nice clean pretty lard for making pie crusts, frying chicken, or if you want, making soap. Fish oils are in the fish, so just eat it. They really aren't that good for anything else anyway.

But between butter, olive oil, and lard, what else do you really need?

Then we are told that the fat in red meat will clog up your arteries and kill you. Hmm, lets see, people have been eating red meat for hundreds of thousands of years without too much trouble. Red meat has proteins, minerals, and enzymes that you just can't find in other foods and if you don't eat it, you need to take mineral suppliments to replace them. Now, I don't know about you, but I had rather eat a nice juicy steak than take a handful of artifically produced pills to get the same nutrition. And they have to get those enzymes for the pills from somewhere, like the byproducts of meat production they cannot sell as food. If you can't eat it as food, why can you eat it as a pill? I don't get it.

In the last 30 years or so, diseases relating to the foods we consume has become epidemic. So why do we spend so much time and energy(and tax dollars) thinking up new ways to kill ourselves when we could just eat the same way our grandparents did. Fresh veggies from the garden, fresh eggs from the henhouse, beef, pork, chicken, duck, venison, fish, turkey, quail, goose, or whatever else could be hunted, and stay away from the breads and sweets all the time.

We would all be healthier for it.

google search

Custom Search

dream weaver stats
4OfficeCoupons