Frugal Challenge - Factors Affecting Food Prices

Do you ever feel like this economy thing is never going to turn around? I think we may be looking at sustained high prices for food maybe from here on in. You buy a box of cereal that is the same price but it is barely the size of a book. Food costs affect us all. You have to eat.

Around here we have been tying to beef up some of our food storage. We do not have a nice walk in pantry. I have to deal with the storage in a 50s house. We did add the cabinet below in our service porch for more storage. We had other items in here before and some paper goods and we moved them somewhere else. Constant editing and reorganizing to find better ways to store more. That is my song. Here you will see we have lots of snacks. I stock up when I find deals but we having been buying more items that that are quickly going up.

We all know corn prices are skyrocketing due to wide spread drought. They say this will affect 75% of the food items you buy. We have been stocking up on extra oil, flour and grain products that are basics in so many meals. We had to spend an unexpected large amount on one of our older cars this week and also have two college age girls who we wrote check after check for this month. Whew! We are on one of our self imposed spending fasts. Food and gas is all we are buying for the next two weeks. If we cut back on all other spending we can rebuild our checking account faster. So to provide meals seven days a week three times a day, for six people, it takes a lot of food. Pantry basics are vital to cooking meals economically. Breads, muffins, soups, cookies are all items that fill tummies and can be made so much more cheaply from scratch.

 I really want to beef up my supply of pastas and canned tuna and other meats. We are also learning to eat more meals without meat. I mean when an average sized beef roast is $17 who can afford that. I am finding mark down meat even harder to find as others are snagging them up as quick as it gets put out. Many are finding it hard to stretch the food budget.

Tuna Noodle Mac is a great easy filling dish that can be made from pantry staples. I will make a huge bowl and we will eat it with some cut up fruit for a quick dinner and there will be enough left for lunches the next day.

This of course is not all my food storage but just some of it. I am looking into freeze dried items like veggies to have more long term food storage and more variety on hand to create entire meals.
Besides food, I am stocking up on the basic cleaning supplies for the home made cleaners I make on my own. My Homemade Laundry Stain Remover is really a great all purpose cleaner. I used it on the kitchen floor the other day and tonight I used it in my van to deep clean all the crud off the doors and cup holders. Worked great!

So gas is rising again and food prices are rising even higher. One thing we did wrong this summer was to keep our garage fridge plugged in. With hot temps, the amount of energy to keep it cool in a hot garage did not make it worth the small supply of bargain meat I had in there. It will be cleaned out and unplugged for the rest of the summer and not ran in the summer ever again. We left it unplugged last summer and it really helped with the electricity bill but we were attempting to stockpile some meat but for about half the difference of running it, I can just buy meat on sale and keep a small supply in the house freezer. Lesson learned.
Here is a link to a post I did in the Thrifty Living Series that links to a lot of former posts I have done on stretching your grocery budget. Next on this topic is where I shop to find the best prices.

Free Emergency Water Storage Ideas

How to store water for the long term and without spending any money. Free ways to store water for emergencies using containers you already have.

This last month I have been focusing on emergency water storage because in the case of a natural or man-made disaster, you absolutely cannot live without WATER!

Stocking The Pantry On A Budget

Whether you live alone or have a large family, stocking a pantry on a budget is one of the biggest money saving moves you can make. Food and paper goods as well as hygiene products are a huge part of every home's budget. Why not save where you can. Here is how I stock the pantry on a budget.

I am going to break down in a series all of the ways we stock our pantry and how we use it and keep it organized and used because there is no point stocking the pantry if you are not going to use it and cook it up before it spoils.

You know how I feel about grocery shopping and stocking my pantry. I can care less about clothes or purses but give me a stocked pantry and I get so excited. It means security and plenty for my family. You will want to use some of my tips cause see that basket above? It was jammed full and had steak and chicken breasts as well as craft beers and it was all just over $100. I think $107 to be exact. 82 items for that price is amazing to me.

On average when I coupon and shop the sale cycles I save anywhere from $50 to $70 off of my usual grocery bill. That is at least $200 a month and one benefit of a fully stocked pantry is that if money is tight one week and I don't want to spend money on groceries, I can skip to the following week and cook from what I have.

Budget Friendly Tips For Stocking The Pantry

1. Stock what you will use. Make a list for a couple weeks of what you are cooking with and actually using. That fancy bottle of olives may have looked good but at $8 you could have bought pounds flour.

2. Use coupons. I have started spending time each week planning my shopping list. I stopped couponing for a couple of years but deciding to really get our food storage accomplished as part of our emergency preps made me decide to get back at it so I could save money on groceries and have extra in the budget for long term food. Now when I see how much I am saving, I am so mad at myself for ever stopping.

3. If you don't want to use coupons, then make sure to check out your grocery sale papers when they come and then shop the loss leaders. Loss leaders are the items on special that week that they are selling at great low prices to lure you in and hoping you spend way more. Sometimes I will pop in a store just for those stock up items.

4. Here is the main way you will save big bucks. BUY way more than you need when the price is low. Here is an example. I was in Target, the hand soap I like was marked way low at .69, with a 20% off deal, that made each hand soap .55. Almost half of the usual $1 price. So I bought 20. Stock up on the sale cycles and then wait until they are on sale again before you have to buy them.

Shop at discount grocers or local markets. Our local produce market is such a good bargain and they sell bulk bags of beans and grains as well. You can watch my youtube video of my latest haul here.

5. Consider using subscribe and save from Amazon. We have been ordering groceries and paper goods from Amazon for years now. Once a month my box comes and it has a few regular items like our coffee and toilet paper and then I switch up other items that come every few months and you can't beat the prices if know your price points. I will do a whole post on what I feel is worth order from Amazon to stock your pantry or emergency food storage. And I always make sure I order five items because then you get an extra 15% off the prices. 

Amazon Prime Day is coming up in a few days too, so I am hoping to snag some really good deals. You can find details below.

6. Now cook up what you have and save money eating at home. I am experimenting with good shelf stable pantry foods so I always have what I need beyond just canned soup and beans.

We are now on youtube and am really loving that medium. A new video will be posted tomorrow on how to clean your vacuum and get rid of any smells and make it clean well again. Come subscribe and say hi.

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Growing Sweet Potatoes, Dehydrating Tomatoes & New Soft Inexpensive Sheets - Frugal Friday

Now that summer is over we are back on a regular blogging schedule and it is time to bring back Frugal Fridays. I love saving money and sharing our frugal tips with you and a little bit of daily life in our home.

I checked the sweet potatoes we grow in the old wheel barrow this week. I have more out in a front planter but they need at least another month. I think the sweet potatoes out back can be dug up in another couple of weeks. I want to have them cured by Thanksgiving. Here is the post on how we grow sweet potatoes in an old wheel barrow.

Last Christmas I asked for a Nesco dehydrator so I could try dehydrating some of our garden surplus to save for our pantry and long term food storage. First, I did a bunch of herbs and when I had a bumper crop of tomatoes one week, I did tomatoes. Four trays dehydrated down to a quart sized mason jar of dehydrated tomatoes.

Aren't they gorgeous? I used some the other day in a pot of pasta and they tasted so good. I just soaked them in some hot water and put them in water and all.

I needed new sheets for our bed and I picked up these from Walmart. I had bought them in blue for my girls and when they were so soft and cozy, I snagged some for us. I think they were around $30 for a queen set and they are so soft so if you need a set of sheets and don't want to spend a lot of money, I recommend these. I don't have the package still but they are their mid priced sheets.

Inspiration

Are you feeling it? The post Christmas, almost New Year itch to tidy things up. Make your home better, more organized and streamlined. Maybe it is the influx of all the new stuff that just came into it. Toys for our youngest, new games and pretties for our older girls, but something about this time of year inspires me to want to really organize some of our spaces.

All the photos are ideas I have found for specific areas in our home. Love this first one and already hung my own version in our bathroom. I will have to share a photo later of that. With four daughters and millions of bottles of hair product in their bathroom, one must get creative with where to store all those bottles.

I hung a wire basket but love this photo's idea too.

Would really like to come up with some better under the bed storage than the usual plastic boxes. Love the wheels on this one and the chalkboard label.

I can't tell you the number of game systems in our house but they are often on my den floor. This deep ottoman storage unit would be great for storing the ones the kids use most often in our den.

I have a very teeny weeny pantry and would love to get it more efficient. It is pretty organized but I would love more food storage containers to prevent things from going stale and to stockpile more canned goods in the same amount of space. These types of containers can be spendy though.

I really want to better utilize the space in my service porch where I have my mom's old table with my microwave on it. Here I have this whole vertical space, but am not using it as well as it could be. A tall storage unit with shelving would be perfect for things like packages of paper towels. The amount of space not being used is killing me. Love all the organized dishes here. See the bags for the stacks of plates. I would have never thought of this.

Processing And Freezing Bulk Ground Beef

About every 6-8 months I order 40 pounds of grass fed 93/7 ground beef from a bulk order.

Here are my tips for processing and freezing ground beef.

Emergency Drinking Water Storage

When you begin emergency preparedness you should start with water. Without emergency drinking water storage you won't last long if a disaster occurs or there is some disruption in your water supply. Storing food for emergencies is what most folks think of first but water should be where you begin.

Drinking water storage is hard though, cause water is not the simplest thing to store. We all don't mind storing bags of beans or rice but water is bulky and requires safe conditions for it to remain drinkable.

Emergency Preparedness - How To Get Started

All of us should be prepared for disasters whether natural or man made and it doesn't have to be overwhelming. Follow in our emergency preparedness series - How to get started.

Do not let the feeling that this prepping or being ready is too much so you will just keep putting it off. I already cover why you need to start NOW. When you begin to gather emergency supplies and start a plan for emergencies, you will discover it gives you a sense of peace and in my case is a little bit addicting. I love working on my deep pantry food storage and getting items that we need checked off of our list.

Frugal Doings

We have been clearing the trees of oranges. We get critters in the yard so I don't want to attract them. This weekend I will make lots of orange juice and freeze the extras.

I am trying to not drive anywhere I don't need to. Will get an oil change on the way home from dropping off the kids at school. 

Organized and cleared an extra shelf in the service porch for more pantry storage.

This is the only pantry I started out with. Pathetic. I now have food in lots of cupboards in the service porch. Moving things out and making it more for food storage.

Tuna Mac made entirely from garden and pantry. The celery and chives and eggs are from the garden. All other ingredients from the pantry.

Keeping large amounts of my cleaning supplies making my own concoctions and always making sure I am stocked up means I don't have to drive out to pick up things I am out of. $83 spent at the market this week so far but I will have to head to Target to stock up on pet foods. We are about out.

Make Baking Mix And Pancake Mix Last Longer - Kitchen Quick Tip

When you stock up and have food storage you have to stay on top of expiration dates to prevent food from spoiling. If you freeze your baking and pancake mixes you will help them to last longer.

Summer Hot Summer Cold

While the heat of August has settled in, our house has been struck by a summer cold. Three down this last week and boy has it been a doozy.

  For hubby to miss two days of work, he has to be in pretty bad shape. He still sounds like he is going to cough up a lung. I have been following my cold fighting practices and I swear there is something to them. After sleeping with the sickies, hubby and four year old, I barely felt a twinge of the cold. I fought it off and that is 2 1/2 years of no colds. I think that is the longest I have ever gone.

We have been staying home for the most part and I am busy with the chickens and my back to school house preparations. I hate for any of my loves to be sick but I never turn down an opportunity to stay home and hunker down. Car hasn't left the drive all day. We did run some errands yesterday, the hubby and I. We reorganized a lot of our food storage and are really trying to stock up as I see another hike in food prices coming real soon with the severe drought conditions. I will share a post on what we have done later this week. I am sharing at Cozy Little House Tweak it Tuesday.

Stock Up Alert - Vanilla Bean Shortage

Stock Up Alert - Vanilla Bean Shortage!! Get ready to start paying a whole lot more for vanilla. 

Due to a vanilla bean shortage in Madagascar, vanilla prices have been skyrocketing.  According to CBS News:

Seventy-nine percent of the world’s vanilla fields are in Madagascar. A shortage there has helped drive up the cost of vanilla beans from about $11 per pound in 2011 to $193 by the end of 2016.

via CBS

So if you bake or use vanilla stock up now before prices rise even more. Vanilla lasts a long time to I always keep an extra bottle or too in my deep pantry. How to stock the pantry on a budget.

Stock Up Tip To Save Money On Vanilla!!

But here is a tip on how I just bought two bottles at the old price. Be on the look out at your grocery store in the vanilla section. It looks like the newer shipments reflected the new high price for vanilla, but their were older stock of the organic vanilla, even better, at 3.99 a bottle. I bought two.

The newer shipments of vanilla the same price were triple that and already $22 for a large bottle. So keep your eyes peeled and stock up on vanilla now. This is why I really believe in food storage. You are not panicked because you already have stocked up at the lower prices.

Check out my 50 Best Frugal Tips for Saving Money

Creamy Tuna Noodle Macaroni Salad

You know it is spring when I start making creamy tuna noodle macaroni salad. This dish means warm weather to us. Creamy cold and filling, this is my summertime meal of choice when the heat is on. I make it early in the day and serve with cut up fruit for many a dinner in summer.

This dish is also a great time saver. I can make it even a day ahead and know we have dinner in the fridge. I keep most of the ingredients well stocked from in the pantry and using my food storage from Thrive makes it so easy cause I always have celery and bell pepper on the shelf. so with just a few fresh ingredients, I have dinner or the perfect pot luck dish in a snap.

Tuna Mac
1/2 pound noodles
2 cans of tuna drained
3 stalks of celery chopped
some chopped green onion or chives. I use chives as I always have them growing.
3 hard boiled eggs chopped
1 bell pepper diced
A generous splash of dill pickle juice
2 tablespoons of dill relish or chopped pickles
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 sour cream (adjust the mayo and sour cream to your liking)
salt and pepper

Boil the noodles. Rinse and drain. Add all other ingredients and mix well. Refrigerate for at least several hours and enjoy. Great for lunch the next day too. That is if you have any leftovers.

Remember keeping dehydrated foods always means you have ingredients hand on the shelf to whip up whatever you desire. Check out my Thrive page for all the possibilities.

Holiday Safety Tips For Your Pets

Top Winter Holidays Safety Tips for Your Furry Children

Buying gifts, baking cookies, decking the halls - there’s so much hustle and bustle going on during the holidays that it’s easy to become overwhelmed. You try to remember the most important things and not to lose sight of what the holidays are all about - family, friends, and love. Your dog is a member of your family, too, and you show them your love all year round by keeping them safe with healthy dog food, regular veterinarian visits. During Christmastime, there are some special precautions you should take to keep your dog safe in the midst of all the festive fun. Here are the top tips for dog safety at Christmas.

This year we have the new pups, Tugg and Luna to worry about, They are just a year now but very much still in the puppy stage. Here they are in there new holiday sweaters. Don't they look alike?

We miss our big dog Sandy at Christmas. She loved all the Christmas morning hustle and bustle and never stopped playing in all the wrapping. I wonder how these two will do. They have new matching stockings that will be waiting for them on Christmas morning.

Sneakers, our 15 year old cat, is enjoying the Christmas tree. I do like to get gifts under the tree right away as the cats will try and drink from the water and I want to prevent that.

Don’t Give Your Dog Table Scraps

All the delicious food may be one of your favorite parts of the holiday, but it’s also one of the most dangerous for your dog. A dog’s keen sense of smell means they’ll be attracted to many different things, even foods that are toxic or items that are inedible. Alcohol, chocolate (especially dark or unsweetened baking chocolate), and xylitol (a sugar substitute) are poisonous to dogs and can be fatal even in small doses. Other toxic foods that can cause severe illness in dogs are grapes, raisins, macadamia nuts, coffee, tea, and fatty foods (such as gravy and turkey skin).

Do not give your dog bones, either, because they can pierce their mouth, throat, intestinal tract, or stomach lining. Be very cautious with food prep or storage items like aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and meat twine or string. These can choke your dog or cause serious internal damage. Make sure all garbage is placed in an outdoor garbage bin. The best thing you can do is keep your dog out of the kitchen entirely, which will also prevent cooking-related accidents. Utilize a gate or to ensure your dog can’t access the kitchen.

Be Cautious of Your Christmas Tree

While the Christmas tree is the most iconic Christmas decoration, there are many potential hazards related to it that all dog owners should be aware of. For example, your dog can be injured if the Christmas tree falls on them, so consider anchoring it to the wall. If your dog chews on electrical wires, make sure any light strand cords are hidden or out-of-reach, or your dog will be at risk of electrical shock. Glass ornaments, if eaten, can cause serious injury to your dog. Tinsel and garland can also cause blockages or choke your dog.

The water in the stand of your real Christmas tree can become toxic, because stagnant water will breed bacteria, and pesticides used in growing your tree will collect in the stand. Pine needles can also be toxic and cause stomach irritation, so don’t allow your dog to chew on your tree branches (including artificial trees) or eat fallen pine needles. If your dog won’t leave the tree alone, consider purchasing a portable fence, especially because this tool will keep your dog safe without requiring you to alter the look of your tree.

Beware of Other Hazards in the Home

If you have any traditional Christmas plants in your home, make sure your dog cannot get to them. Mistletoe, poinsettias, and holly plants are poisonous to dogs. It’s best to avoid using them as decorations altogether and opt for the artificial versions instead. Potpourri, essential oils, and adhesives/glues are also toxic to dogs. Make sure lit candles are also out-of-reach so your dog won’t accidentally knock them over and start a fire.

When having guests in your home, ask them to keep their medications, gum, and other dangerous substances up high where your dog can’t get them. When you’re cleaning in preparation for guests, be careful not to leave toxic cleaning chemicals out. Remind your guests not to feed your dog or leave their drinks/plates unattended.

As always, a little precaution and common sense will go a long way for keeping your dog safe. Keep the phone numbers to your local animal hospital and your vet’s office handy, and be sure to call at the first sign of distress in your dog. If your dog is acting strangely or is ill, call right away. Keep an eye on your dog as much as possible, but consider keeping them in a closed room that is free of hazards during a busy holiday party. Remember that dogs get overwhelmed by lots of activity, people, and noise much more easily than humans do.

RV Storage Organization Hacks

When camping, whether in a motor home or trailer, RV storage hacks are a must for organized camping. You cannot enjoy camping if you can't find your camping gear or are tripping over all or your supplies so we're sharing a few of our camping trailer set up ideas cause the best RV hacks are worth reading about.