I guess to anyone who didn't grow up in the country, planting enough food for a year just seems a little off. But if you think about the amount of money you can save even with just one type of vegetable, it is astounding.
Lets do some math. Lets say your family eats green beans 3 times a week. That is 156 times a year that you would eat green beans. Now lets say that you pay 45 cents a can for generic green beans. That is a little over $70 dollars a year just in green beans. When you consider the all of the different canned vegetables your family eats over the course of the year, it can add up really fast.
Even buying vegetables fresh in the produce department of the grocery store is expensive. Fresh green beans at my local national chain are generally around $1.19 a pound. The very few times I have purchased them, it took almost a pound for my family of 4. $1.19, three times a week will cost you $185.64 a year, again for only one vegetable. And I have no idea what pesticides were used or what they have been treated with to help maintain freshness.
Another thing to think about with canned/tinned foods is the amount of processing it goes through. Salt is added to just about every type of canned vegetable on the market. And in large quantities. You will also find other preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, added colors, added flavors, ad nauseum, all for the purpose of making their product more appealing so you will buy it more often.
I am not saying that everyone can or should try to grow all of their own food. That just isn't possible these days. Most of us do not have enough workable space to be able to grow a year's worth of food. The garden that my parents had when I was growing up was about 1/2 to 3/4 of an acre, bigger than the entire lot my house is sitting on now. That doesn't mean that I can't have a garden. It just means that I can only supplement our food supply instead of grow it all. Millions of people do this by growing tomatoes on the balcony of their apartments, or planting blueberries as shrubs around the house. Even miniature lemon and lime trees are becoming popular these days.
By processing and preserving your own home grown fruits and vegetables, you only spend the cost of the seeds or plants, you know exactly what pesticides and fertilizers have been used, you can control the amount of sodium in your food, and you would be amazed at the difference in taste. You will also get the joy of know exactly what you are eating.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
Frugal cooking.
Learning to live frugally can sometimes be a challenge. It takes a complete change in the way you think about things and the time you are willing to spend to do it right.
As a whole, we have gotten used to the idea that a meal that takes 10 minutes to make is just as good for us as one that takes an hour and a half. The only real problem with that is the price.
Lets say that I wanted to have Chinese for dinner. That is great because Chinese food has lots of fresh veggies and can use less expensive cuts of meat, if you use meat at all. Now, if you live in a city, you would probably just order take out or have it delivered. Here is where you run into your first problem. Cost. Restaurants are in the business to make money. So you over pay for any take out that you buy. You are paying for the convenience of not having to cook. They also use a lot of MSG so it isn't as healthy as you might think.
Making a simple stir fry isn't difficult if you keep a few things on hand. I always keep soy sauce in the cabinet. I use it in all types of sauces and marinades, and I also use it to baste over roasted chicken. So it is very handy to have around. I also keep rice. It is cheap, will store for a really long time, and it is very versatile. I also keep fresh carrots and frozen broccoli and cauliflower. Again, inexpensive, versatile, and easy to store. Add those things to any fresh or left over meats and you have a nice quick stir fry meal. And the best part is that you can add a few other things you might have laying around the kitchen, like fresh garlic or peanuts, that will add flavor and nutrients with out costing you a fortune. If anyone wants the basics of stir fry, leave me a comment and I will post the process.
I sometimes use Ramen noodles instead of rice. If you grab them when they are on sale you can generally pick up several packages for less than a dollar. I generally use 1 package for every two people when I add it to a stir fry.
Cooking at home has many advantages over take out. It costs a lot less, you can control the ingredients, and you always get that wonderful feeling of making it yourself. And it is really hard to screw up a stir fry.
As a whole, we have gotten used to the idea that a meal that takes 10 minutes to make is just as good for us as one that takes an hour and a half. The only real problem with that is the price.
Lets say that I wanted to have Chinese for dinner. That is great because Chinese food has lots of fresh veggies and can use less expensive cuts of meat, if you use meat at all. Now, if you live in a city, you would probably just order take out or have it delivered. Here is where you run into your first problem. Cost. Restaurants are in the business to make money. So you over pay for any take out that you buy. You are paying for the convenience of not having to cook. They also use a lot of MSG so it isn't as healthy as you might think.
Making a simple stir fry isn't difficult if you keep a few things on hand. I always keep soy sauce in the cabinet. I use it in all types of sauces and marinades, and I also use it to baste over roasted chicken. So it is very handy to have around. I also keep rice. It is cheap, will store for a really long time, and it is very versatile. I also keep fresh carrots and frozen broccoli and cauliflower. Again, inexpensive, versatile, and easy to store. Add those things to any fresh or left over meats and you have a nice quick stir fry meal. And the best part is that you can add a few other things you might have laying around the kitchen, like fresh garlic or peanuts, that will add flavor and nutrients with out costing you a fortune. If anyone wants the basics of stir fry, leave me a comment and I will post the process.
I sometimes use Ramen noodles instead of rice. If you grab them when they are on sale you can generally pick up several packages for less than a dollar. I generally use 1 package for every two people when I add it to a stir fry.
Cooking at home has many advantages over take out. It costs a lot less, you can control the ingredients, and you always get that wonderful feeling of making it yourself. And it is really hard to screw up a stir fry.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Organic foods
You would think with the price of food going up every day and the number of people who are eating organic, that the corporate farms would see the trend and start producing more healthy, wholesome foods. Instead "organic" is being treated as a niche market that they can charge a premium for.
I grew up organic without even knowing what that meant. We had a huge garden (about 3/4 of an acre) where we grew almost all of the vegetables we ate, chickens for eggs and meat, a few pigs, a couple of cows, and 3 apple trees. My grandmother had about 1/4 acre in strawberries and a family friend had a milk cow.
We didn't use alot of chemical fertilizers in the garden. That was what the cow and pigs were for. We traded eggs for milk every week, and my grandmother was more than happy to share the strawberries with us since we gave her the feathers from the chickens to make pillows and featherbeds.
We would go to town every couple of weeks to deposit my Dad's paycheck and do what little shopping that needed to be done. Usually it was just coffee, cereal, sugar, flour, and maybe some sodas. The rest of the time we spent doing chores and homework.
We would spend a lot of time in the summer canning the garden. My brother and I still had to get up every morning around 7 and pick the garden every day. My dad really liked green beans so we usually had 8 40 foot rows. That comes out to about 4 bushels of green beans every 3 days or so. We tried to get everything that needed picking done by noon, before it got too hot. Then we would spend the afternoon snapping, shelling, washing, peeling, cutting, or whatever it was that was needed for what we had picked that day. Then while my brother was taking care of the livestock, I would be helping my mother can everything.
Now granted, it was a lot of work, but at least we knew what was in our food. We didn't have to wash off any residual pesticides, or waxy preservatives before we ate it. We didn't have to worry about growth hormones or antibiotics in the meat or milk, we could eat a soft boiled egg with worry about salmonella. And the best part was that a year's worth of food cost us a few bags of livestock feed and some seeds.
Organic food would have been laughed about at my house. "Who would spend twice as much to buy food that we grow ourselves?"
I guess the laugh was on us.
I grew up organic without even knowing what that meant. We had a huge garden (about 3/4 of an acre) where we grew almost all of the vegetables we ate, chickens for eggs and meat, a few pigs, a couple of cows, and 3 apple trees. My grandmother had about 1/4 acre in strawberries and a family friend had a milk cow.
We didn't use alot of chemical fertilizers in the garden. That was what the cow and pigs were for. We traded eggs for milk every week, and my grandmother was more than happy to share the strawberries with us since we gave her the feathers from the chickens to make pillows and featherbeds.
We would go to town every couple of weeks to deposit my Dad's paycheck and do what little shopping that needed to be done. Usually it was just coffee, cereal, sugar, flour, and maybe some sodas. The rest of the time we spent doing chores and homework.
We would spend a lot of time in the summer canning the garden. My brother and I still had to get up every morning around 7 and pick the garden every day. My dad really liked green beans so we usually had 8 40 foot rows. That comes out to about 4 bushels of green beans every 3 days or so. We tried to get everything that needed picking done by noon, before it got too hot. Then we would spend the afternoon snapping, shelling, washing, peeling, cutting, or whatever it was that was needed for what we had picked that day. Then while my brother was taking care of the livestock, I would be helping my mother can everything.
Now granted, it was a lot of work, but at least we knew what was in our food. We didn't have to wash off any residual pesticides, or waxy preservatives before we ate it. We didn't have to worry about growth hormones or antibiotics in the meat or milk, we could eat a soft boiled egg with worry about salmonella. And the best part was that a year's worth of food cost us a few bags of livestock feed and some seeds.
Organic food would have been laughed about at my house. "Who would spend twice as much to buy food that we grow ourselves?"
I guess the laugh was on us.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Back to basics
When I think of all of the knowledge that has been lost in the last 100 years it makes me really sad. Technology has damaged us in almost every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat to the way we raise our children.
100 years ago, most people lived in the country, had a few acres and a house, maybe a few chickens, a garden, and if they were lucky, a cow or a couple of pigs. The lady of the house worked the garden, raised the kids, cooked, cleaned, sewed all of the clothing for the family, preserved the produce for the winter, washed clothes by hand then hung them up to dry, cleaned and swept the entire house, and if she had any time left in the day, would then do any handcraft that suited her like knitting, embroidery, crochet, carding wool or cotton, spinning, weaving, etc. Anything that might make a few coins in town or for personal use.
The man of the house would spend the majority of the day working the land or animals, felling trees to build a new barn, digging stumps out of a new field, repairing equipment, chopping wood for the wood stove or fireplace, and any other heavy work that needed to be done.
When night fell and it was too dark to work outside, the inside work would begin. Helping the children ( and there were many) with schoolwork, washing dishes, and reading from the Bible as a family. And an early bedtime for everyone because the day started at dawn.
Now that we don't have to worry about preserving enough food for the winter, fixing the leak in the roof, or making sure that no wolves get into the chicken house, we have more time to sit around and be bored. So we find things to keep us busy. Like watching TV. Or running to the mall.
Our kids are getting arrested because we as parents do not keep the kids busy enough to stay out of trouble. When we are not taking them to soccer practice, music lessons, tai kwon do, or putting them into pageants, we let them set in their rooms on the computer.
So, in a nutshell, we buy all of our food over processed and over salted (read as unhealthy), buy all of our meat from mass production farms where they are fed altered grains and processed feed from who knows where (read Mad Cow disease), have so little physical activity in our daily lives that we have to go to the gym to work our muscles (sedentary lifestyle with rapid bursts of activity that will only over activate the adrenal gland), kids who are not held accountable for their own actions (because they don't know what responsibility means), and a national epidemic of heart disease and other stress related disorders.
Doctors are telling us to eat healthier fresh foods, get more exercise, and do things to reduce stress in our lives.
It is amazing to me that our grandparents and great grand parents died of old age yet our children will have to worry about dying of cholesterol poisoning by the time they are 40. There is just something wrong with our way of thinking if we can actually make ourselves believe we are better off because of technology.
100 years ago, most people lived in the country, had a few acres and a house, maybe a few chickens, a garden, and if they were lucky, a cow or a couple of pigs. The lady of the house worked the garden, raised the kids, cooked, cleaned, sewed all of the clothing for the family, preserved the produce for the winter, washed clothes by hand then hung them up to dry, cleaned and swept the entire house, and if she had any time left in the day, would then do any handcraft that suited her like knitting, embroidery, crochet, carding wool or cotton, spinning, weaving, etc. Anything that might make a few coins in town or for personal use.
The man of the house would spend the majority of the day working the land or animals, felling trees to build a new barn, digging stumps out of a new field, repairing equipment, chopping wood for the wood stove or fireplace, and any other heavy work that needed to be done.
When night fell and it was too dark to work outside, the inside work would begin. Helping the children ( and there were many) with schoolwork, washing dishes, and reading from the Bible as a family. And an early bedtime for everyone because the day started at dawn.
Now that we don't have to worry about preserving enough food for the winter, fixing the leak in the roof, or making sure that no wolves get into the chicken house, we have more time to sit around and be bored. So we find things to keep us busy. Like watching TV. Or running to the mall.
Our kids are getting arrested because we as parents do not keep the kids busy enough to stay out of trouble. When we are not taking them to soccer practice, music lessons, tai kwon do, or putting them into pageants, we let them set in their rooms on the computer.
So, in a nutshell, we buy all of our food over processed and over salted (read as unhealthy), buy all of our meat from mass production farms where they are fed altered grains and processed feed from who knows where (read Mad Cow disease), have so little physical activity in our daily lives that we have to go to the gym to work our muscles (sedentary lifestyle with rapid bursts of activity that will only over activate the adrenal gland), kids who are not held accountable for their own actions (because they don't know what responsibility means), and a national epidemic of heart disease and other stress related disorders.
Doctors are telling us to eat healthier fresh foods, get more exercise, and do things to reduce stress in our lives.
It is amazing to me that our grandparents and great grand parents died of old age yet our children will have to worry about dying of cholesterol poisoning by the time they are 40. There is just something wrong with our way of thinking if we can actually make ourselves believe we are better off because of technology.
Have you ever...
Have you ever had a day that just felt wrong? You know the kind, where everything seems to be about half a bubble off plumb? Well, that is today. Just sitting around waiting for the ax to fall.
Not being able to sleep because of the stress, everything mechanical in the house acting just a little bit weird, the power twitching on and off this morning...it is gonna be an interesting day.
My husband is spending his time this morning looking thru job listings. Again. I will probably dig thru corners in the house to see if we have anything that we can sell. Hopefully the kids will do their chores this afternoon without griping too much about it. I might even get them to clean out their closets in the search of fodder to sell.
I need to find some big boxes. There isn't really any reason not to go ahead and pack some of this stuff up. Even if we do find a job and can stay, I have stuff in my cabinets that hasn't seen daylight in a couple of years at least. I think I will have another "if I haven't touched it in six months, it goes away" sale. At least that will give me an excuse to get rid of that dollar store skillet my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.
Not being able to sleep because of the stress, everything mechanical in the house acting just a little bit weird, the power twitching on and off this morning...it is gonna be an interesting day.
My husband is spending his time this morning looking thru job listings. Again. I will probably dig thru corners in the house to see if we have anything that we can sell. Hopefully the kids will do their chores this afternoon without griping too much about it. I might even get them to clean out their closets in the search of fodder to sell.
I need to find some big boxes. There isn't really any reason not to go ahead and pack some of this stuff up. Even if we do find a job and can stay, I have stuff in my cabinets that hasn't seen daylight in a couple of years at least. I think I will have another "if I haven't touched it in six months, it goes away" sale. At least that will give me an excuse to get rid of that dollar store skillet my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Outside the box
While trying to come up with ways to survive the coming lack of income, we have been trying to think out side the box. There has to be a way to make enough money to survive without selling your soul to do it.
Since I can't work for health reasons, that leaves my husband in a really tight spot. He is really feeling the pressure of having to support 4 people without a job. Stressful to say the very least. My kids, bless their thumpin' gizzards, are trying to be supportive of anything that will enable us to stay here. They are willing to eat pasta and beans forever if need be. My daughter wants to get a job so that she can make the house payment for us if we can't afford to.
Right now, we are investigating different ways to make a little bit of cash that doesn't involve selling insurance door to door or moving to Boston or California. Don't get me wrong, I am sure there are good things about those places, buried somewhere in the tax laws and history books, but I am a Southern Girl, born and bred. All of the family is here, and our cultural history is still strong in our family. Not to mention I don't want to walk into a restaurant and have another waitress look at our feet to see if we were wearing shoes after asking where we were from.
We have had a good run on the job front. 17 years working for the same company is almost unheard of these days. We have survived 6 lay offs, a couple of hostile takeover bids (failed) and my loss of ability to work. We have managed to pay off every single credit card we had (6 of the danged things), pay off the truck early, and still be able to eat well. We are probably in the best financial shape we have ever been in, at least until the ax falls sometime in the next couple of weeks.
Now we are looking into the possibility of delivering newspapers, setting up a website to showcase our state ( and sell related merchandise) and selling stuff on Ebay. Anything to make a few bucks. Hopefully, we will be able to make enough to stay put for a while for the sake of the kids.
I still want a place out in the woods. If we have to sell, that is where we are headed. But for the next few months, we will be looking for work "outside the box".
Since I can't work for health reasons, that leaves my husband in a really tight spot. He is really feeling the pressure of having to support 4 people without a job. Stressful to say the very least. My kids, bless their thumpin' gizzards, are trying to be supportive of anything that will enable us to stay here. They are willing to eat pasta and beans forever if need be. My daughter wants to get a job so that she can make the house payment for us if we can't afford to.
Right now, we are investigating different ways to make a little bit of cash that doesn't involve selling insurance door to door or moving to Boston or California. Don't get me wrong, I am sure there are good things about those places, buried somewhere in the tax laws and history books, but I am a Southern Girl, born and bred. All of the family is here, and our cultural history is still strong in our family. Not to mention I don't want to walk into a restaurant and have another waitress look at our feet to see if we were wearing shoes after asking where we were from.
We have had a good run on the job front. 17 years working for the same company is almost unheard of these days. We have survived 6 lay offs, a couple of hostile takeover bids (failed) and my loss of ability to work. We have managed to pay off every single credit card we had (6 of the danged things), pay off the truck early, and still be able to eat well. We are probably in the best financial shape we have ever been in, at least until the ax falls sometime in the next couple of weeks.
Now we are looking into the possibility of delivering newspapers, setting up a website to showcase our state ( and sell related merchandise) and selling stuff on Ebay. Anything to make a few bucks. Hopefully, we will be able to make enough to stay put for a while for the sake of the kids.
I still want a place out in the woods. If we have to sell, that is where we are headed. But for the next few months, we will be looking for work "outside the box".
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Well, that tears it...
Well, we have found out today that my husband will likely be out of work no later than January 28. The kids are devastated, naturally. At least we have been working toward a more self sufficient lifestyle lately. We only have the house payment and the utilities to deal with. Oh, and the medical bills. Always the medical bills.
Now we get to see what an out of work C++ programmer can do to support our family of 4. Since I can't work any more, he is our sole support. It is a good thing that I have learned to make due with less. I can now feed our family for about $6-8 a day, provided we don't get too sick of beans and pasta.
We will have to seriously cut back on the meat that we eat and we will be a lot more careful in our grocery purchases. Fortunately I can cook and know how to use herbs and seasonings to highlight a bland meal. Maybe this will give a chance to eat healthier, you know, make our calories work better for us. At least we will not be buying sodas again for a while.
Now we get to see what an out of work C++ programmer can do to support our family of 4. Since I can't work any more, he is our sole support. It is a good thing that I have learned to make due with less. I can now feed our family for about $6-8 a day, provided we don't get too sick of beans and pasta.
We will have to seriously cut back on the meat that we eat and we will be a lot more careful in our grocery purchases. Fortunately I can cook and know how to use herbs and seasonings to highlight a bland meal. Maybe this will give a chance to eat healthier, you know, make our calories work better for us. At least we will not be buying sodas again for a while.
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