Let's Plan for Christmas 2013

I want to encourage you all and myself included to start planning for Christmas 2013. If your Christmas is a very simple affair and you have just a few gifts to buy then this may not appeal to you but if your Christmas is anything like mine, full of holiday gatherings, lots of gift giving, baking, wrapping, shopping, cleaning.... You get my drift. December can be a very hectic month. This last year it was especially so for us with the busy schedules in our house. My husband and I vowed to start early this year and I am starting this month in fact.

First have you packed away all of your holiday stuff? If you have straggler items or have picked up some items cheaply at the after after sales, keep a box labeled Christmas that you can stash these items in or do like me and keep a drawer. I have a drawer in an old dresser we have in a closet. I stash any early gifts or really cheap wrap or bows I find. I bought lots of bags, bows and ribbon at a 90% off sale. Many items were 30 cents. I actually have all my wrap and ribbon and bags for this coming year. All bought at rock bottom prices.

How about starting your gift card buying. I try to buy one every month along with my groceries as the markets sell such a variety of cards. This way by December I have eleven cards already bought and paid for. This is a great option for us as we have so many teens and young adults in our family now. They love gift cards.

Grab a little notebook and label it now CHRISTMAS 2013. Start with what you don't want to do again that you did last year. Were you wrapping on Christmas Eve? I did that one year. I hated it and vowed to not do it again. Were you a slave to baking and spending too much time in the kitchen? Maybe bake only two or three favorites in larger quantities. The things your family hopes for each year. That is what I have done. We bake only cut outs, ginger bread men and one other goodie we choose for the year. I just double batches to make sure I have enough.

For me, I left too much shopping to December. I hate shopping so doing it with crowds is misery. My husband helped me out but we vowed to spend a couple days doing all shopping that is left on our lists in the late fall. No shopping after Thanksgiving. Of course buying throughout the year is ideal but there is always the gifts you have to wait to buy like if your family picks names or for stocking stuffers. We will make a date of it. Lunch out and shopping a couple times in the fall.

What do you vow to do differently this year? Let's make a plan for an organized Christmas and do a little each month.

Red, White and Black It Is!

I go back and forth about the colors in my kitchen. Red always but now I have decided to stick with the red, white and black.

Of course I mentioned this to you know who and he went to work last weekend while I was gone.

The little black dotted chicky is my most recent addition. She came at Christmas.

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Hubby and an EGG!!!

 Now is that a great shot I was sent this morning or what? While I slept last night this was where my hubby was. Just hanging over the lights of L.A.. He is awesome. At least to me.

And guess what? I got an egg today. I heard the familiar bawk bawk of the egg laying and sure enough, Flower Muffin layed her first egg since November when she started to molt. I am so happy to gather eggs again. It was smallish like when she first started laying so she is getting back into the groove dear girl.

Is it possible to love your chickens this much? I need to live in the country and have a flock.

Frugal Challenge - Grocery Spending Update and Living From Our Pantry

Last week I spent less than $120 for all shopping for our needs. That included pet food and paper products as well. I am keeping well under my goal. I am hoping as my stock pile grows to lower the weekly amount I spend. In fact this week I need to pick up a few things we are running out of but though the fridge looks sort of bare, we are eating well.

Tonight we had breakfast for dinner. Some sausage from the freezer and my super fluffy pancakes. We are out of milk and eggs so I will make a stop tomorrow and redeem my $7 I earned from Fresh and Easy. I picked oranges from the yard tonight to make up sliced oranges for lunches tomorrow. Free! We are actually planting a couple new fruit trees in the yard this spring to extend our free produce from the yard. I get all the compost and chicken manure I need from the chickens.

Having stocked the pantry better has allowed me to start whittling down our grocery budget. Because I make lunches everyday for the two youngest and my husband, I do like to keep a variety of snacks and drinks to put in them. To some this may seem wasteful, maybe they could drink water, but I feel we save a great deal by not buying lunches out so it is nice to have a treat of a special drink or some chips and other goodies. I keep a stash hidden so that these are not consumed at home by the kids. They tend to make more homemade snacks in the house so that I can treat them in their lunches.

Juice boxes at the lowest price I have seen were bought and stocked in the pantry. These have lasted me over a month. Try and calculate how much your family will need for say a month, then maybe three months and then six months. When you see something you use at rock bottom prices stock up big. When I saw pasta at the lowest price I have seen in years I bought enough for a year. I know they thought I was strange checking out but we eat a lot of pasta dinners with meat as a condiment and I make lots of salads which are great in lunches and homemade mac and cheese for dinners. I swear by the pantry principle.

Remember this is Super Bowl weekend. Watch for low prices on condiments and snacks they might have on special and stock up.

How to Cover Your Grey Roots Between Colorings

How to cover your grey roots between colorings is maybe the best frugal tip I have ever shared here on the blog. Not sure why I have waited so long.

Sorry for the extreme closeup of my scalp but it was hard to get a picture by myself. So you can see I have about five weeks of regrowth here. Holding out until six weeks. I am trying to go longer between colorings to save money.

Take an eye shadow that is close to your hair color. Use a small makeup brush or paint brush and dip the brush in water and then into the eye shadow. Like water paints when you were a kid. Then just paint down your part or where the grey shows. Let is dry and it will last and last until you wash it again.

Here are the results.

Amazing isn't it? I go two days and it lasts the entire time until I shampoo my hair again.

My daughter bought me this grey root cover and I love it. Goes on great and lasts until the next time you shampoo. The brush is perfect for applying the fill in powder to cover grey hair between color.

You can find the grey root touch up here. Less than $7 and has lasted me a long time.

Sending Some Warmth

I am sending all of you that are freezing, a bit of California warmth. We have had warm sunny weather this week and I know many of you are hunkered down with very low temps. Stay warm and safe. We have rain today which is much needed. The chickens love it and are splashing about in the water. Enjoy the sunflowers.

Today I just realized would be my mom's birthday. Ten birthdays we have missed now. No wonder I have felt a little funky today. It is that bond.

Distracted

When you are distracted you go out after your shower and run errands all the while forgetting you never put make up on. That has never happened to me before. What is happening? I don't wear much make up but ladies I wear some. You know why I am so distracted? Because I needed to make a dozen calls, set appointments, straighten out a few things and file some paper work and submit claims for 2012.

I needed to just really cross things off my list. So I did. The sun never came out today so no garden to pull me out there like it had the three days prior. I stayed inside and turned my V-Day tree on and have left it on all day. I know you have seen it before but I love it.  Little shoes beneath and a book waiting to be picked up. Tomorrow.

Today I needed to get on it. AND I did. Made those calls, filed the claims, made appointments. Just a couple more things tomorrow and I will be done. I cannot tell you how much better I feel now than I did this morning. When I have much to take care of that I am putting off, I feel such a weight on me.

The ability to mark a line through my to do list makes me feel like a new person. Seriously. I am tackling it all this week come hell or high water. I even dropped our taxes off on Monday.

My girls had friends coming after school. I made brownies. Big glasses of milk and a couple of brownies is what coming home should be.

My hard working man will not be home for dinner for the third night in a row. I hate this. We always eat together but when the power goes out or some squirrel chews through a cable, he has to fix it and pronto. I want to have him by me sharing the bench in the kitchen. Aw heck, why cook a big meal? So I made tuna mac for dinner.

Frugal Challenge Room By Room - Saving Money in the Laundry Room

Thought I would start off this series with a room I spend a great deal of time in. With four kids, dogs and a husband that works out doors, I have to do laundry every day of the week except Sunday and at least two to three loads a day. That is sheets, clothes, dog beds. You get my drift.

So here is how I try to save money in the laundry room. I literally am going to do a detailed list of all efforts to save in this room.

1. The light:
  -Changed the ceiling fixture to a flouresent bulb years ago. It is still going strong and costs very little to run.

2. The washer:
    - Run the washer only full. This is easy for us.
   -  I have also turned down the number of minutes recently. How few can I use to get a load of laundry clean? Instead of running it 12 minutes I am now running it 10. Clothes seem fine.This may seem like nothing but two minutes times four loads is eight minutes a day times six days a so 48 less minutes the washer is churning a week. That has to save some electricity.
   - Can you get a load clean on cold water instead of warm? Our water does not get that cold in winter so I have turned up the cold tap on the warm cycle as well. If your homemade detergent does not dissolve then you can put it in a cup of hot water for a few minutes before you pour it in the washer. This has happened to me and this is what I do.
   -I do not use fabric softener so no money spent there.

3. The Dryer:
    -Keep your buzzer on. If yours is like mine it will buzz when the dryer is done and then keep going for a few more minutes. I try to get the clothes out on the first buzz.
  - Put the next load in while the dryer is warm still. This will save money on the dryer heating up again.
  -Clean the lint trap every single load.
  -I rarely use dryer sheets but if I do need one I tear them in half. Works fine and you get twice as many dryer sheets.
  -Of course you could hang your clothes. I do have a small line out back but I do use my dryer. I just don't want to spend the time with all the loads I do hanging it out. We have a gas dryer and our gas bill is very low so this is an area I feel is worth the use of the dryer.

I make my own laundry soap and stain remover. Recipes for homemade laundry detergent and stain remover
are here and here. I will buy laundry soap if I find a really great deal. Have not bought stain remover in over a year since I started making my own. You can see the post where I buy my supplies cheaply here.

Hearts

I think my favorite part of Valentine's day beside RED is all the hearts.

I have a love affair with them and that could be why I have several sets of heart shaped bowls. When I see them I have to buy them. I need to share them. I don't think I ever have.

Even the front room has some hearts.

Frugal Compost Holder and Container Gardening

What does it say when you choose the big mug this morning for coffee?

I mean it is like drinking out of a bucket. My husband was laughing saying I must really need to wake up to use the big mug. 

I love heading out to let my girls out in the mornings. No eggs yet. Waaa! This girl should be laying anytime again after her break from a molt, when they loose feathers and regrow new ones. I am waiting Flower Muffin.

This is Rocky. Look at how scrawny she looks. She is in the middle of a molt. You can see where she is growing new feathers on her neck. Usually she is so big and fluffy.  No eggs from her for a while.

There's my gorgeous compost pile and you can see how to make this super frugal compost holder here. I gave the chickens this pumpkin to pick at and then threw the whole thing in there to rot and make gorgeous soil for my garden. I did this before. One day it will just collapse in there. Whenever I move around the wire frame, the chickens go crazy for the abundance of worms underneath. The soil smells so good and rich. Anyone like me? I love the smell of rich soil.

The girls are off for MLK day so no driving. Yeah!!!!!! I shall work in the yard. I am pruning and cleaning out planters. The pansies I planted in the fall are still going strong. Loving our warm days and cool nights.

You can see my tips on container gardening here.

Chickens One Year Later

It has been almost a year since I embarked on the journey to have chickens in my backyard. I thought I would share some thoughts and sum up how I feel almost a year later.

We started out with four chicks. We are legally able to have three but the guy at the feed store said sometimes you loose one so get an extra. They all survived and are alive today in spite of me.

First, I thought we would tuck them away in this space behind the garage. The is the long suffering spouse building the enclosure. It was nice and secure but I just was not happy with this set up.

I could not see them and let me tell you, watching chickens and hearing the cute sounds they make is half the fun. I never tire of watching what they are doing.

Here are my thoughts a few months in on what you should consider if you want to raise chickens in the city.

At this point the girls were still in the old coop and I would let them out during the day but chickens are hard on a garden. Especially a small one, so the gardener in me was suffering at this point.

Then I told my husband, the ever patient man, I hated the chickens behind the garage and we ordered this small backyard chicken coop. The post about it is here. Wish we would have done this from the start. It is perfect for our needs and I am very happy with it. The chickens were still roaming the yard during the day which they loved but I did not.

So in November we put this up. A quick job of fencing with supplies we already had. We wanted to see how this would work and let me say, you live and learn with chickens. This is the most awesome set up. I can see them, they have space to roam and dirt to bathe in and I let them out once in a while but mostly they live contently back here. We should have done this from the start. I think this year we will build something more permanent and attractive but for now I couldn't be happier. The yard and patio is clean all the time and we can see them and interact while out there. 

I now have just the two girls and gave two away because I felt four was a bit much for my yard but I would love to add another chicken to have three but I think my husband might have other ideas this year. The two should be good layers this year as they are fully grown now but they are on a winter break from laying and I am dying to get my fresh eggs again. We have been very warm and sunny so hopefully soon. We also put a little light in the coop to give them some extended hours of light to help with laying.  So I wait.

Would I do this again? YES! I love chickens. They are a very calming wonderful pet to have. Getting them dialed in was the challenge but they never were. They have been good girls and I hope to own chickens for a long time.

We now have an attractive easy DIY chicken run fence. Check it out here.

Remove the Smell from Your Vacuum

How to clean your vacuum.

Or just give your vacuum a good scrubbing. Because I have a dog that sheds like crazy, I vacuum almost daily and our vacuum after a while begins to smell. You know you turn on the vacuum and you smell your stinky dog. 

I figured out long ago I really had to scrub the vacuum to get rid of the odor.

First, if you have a canister type like mine, take it all apart. I could never get this filter clean with scrubbing or running water so I decided to wash it in the washer. I fill with hot water and detergent and let it run on a gentle cycle. Really does a great job.

Just run it through a whole cycle and rinse.

 Then I put the pieces out to dry completely in the sun. The next time I use the vacuum, I don't smell the dog anymore.

Also here is a tip. If you have a bag type vacuum you can toss a fabric softener sheet into the bag and it will help with the dog smell.

Frugal Challenge - Grocery Spending Update

I am trying ever so hard to stick to a tighter grocery budget. This means more work on my part as I am having to prepare more food from scratch. This of course is good as processed foods are not really that good for you. I still like to proving delicious snacks for lunches and quick breakfasts.

Pickled eggs are a favorite. I save old jars of juice when we eat the pickles and then boil up some eggs, peel and put in the juice for at least two days. The longer the better. Pickle juice is also a great way to add flavor and moisten pasta and potato salads. My recipes for those are here.

I never throw away a banana. Just pop in the freezer. They are ready to peel after about ten minutes on the counter. Throw them frozen in smoothies and thaw for banana bread.

Last week I spent $112 at the market and $24 at my local produce store which also sells bulk grains and marked down bread. I can tell the kids miss the quick snacks but I told them once they are gone then you make a snack, eat leftovers, etc. They are good about this. I don't buy a lot of packaged foods. We are already out of lunchmeat for the week. Leftovers, tuna sammies and wraps will be made for lunches until Friday.
I have decided to remove the pet food and OTC/Health and beauty category from my food budget. It was too hard to merge the two. I now have a separate budgeted amount for those items.

Easiest Way to Cook Dried Beans

Okay, second full week of the New Year's frugal challenge. Trying to cook more from scratch and it doesn't get more basic than dried beans. Lower in sodium than canned and much cheaper when you buy them dried.

This week I made my black bean salad. Trying to make healthier options for lunches for hubby.

Bag of dried beans was a $1.56. I can make 4 to five batches of my salad from this where two cans of black  beans is around a $1 if not on sale.

So easy to get the beans ready yourself. The night before I rinsed what I wanted to use and let them soak overnight. I then drained and rinsed again and put them in the crockpot with water cover about two inches about the beans and put on low for about 5-6 hours. My crockpot runs hot so adjust for yours. You may need to put on high.

When I felt they were done I rinsed them with cold water and made my salad. Super easy. No sodium added.

Here is the salad right before I mixed it. Doesn't it look pretty. The recipe for the black bean salad is here.