A Money Saving Idea

So along with all my other bright ideas, I have decided that I want to start finding new ways (for our family) to save some money.  I've done the coupon thing, and at one point I was managing to save about $25.00-$50.00 per week but it just didn't seem to be enough to keep my interest.  I was clipping religiously from multiple papers and even had friends save their inserts for me.  I just couldn't seem to break that magical barrier that those television shows spoke about and save 80-90% or more on my grocery bill.

Part of the problem is that my family likes to consume.  If I purchase two cases of their favorite soda, then by the end of the week it is gone and they move on to whatever else is available.  If I buy buffalo chicken strips for quick snacks then they eat the entire bag in one day.  No amount of stuff seems to be "enough" and it gets expensive to try to keep everyone satisfied.  In the past I have given in to eating mostly fast food but it too is expensive for a family of four, not to mention unhealthy.  So, I have decided to make them go cold turkey on all of the stuff and live a little more sanely.  

I have decided that I will (try to) prepare a weeks worth of meals in advance, freeze them and then just pop them in the crock pot in the morning before I leave for work. OK, I know that this is probably not going to be the end all answer to my savings dilemma but perhaps it will make enough of a difference so that I can start saving more than the chump change that I have managed to salvage before.      

I seem to remember meals as a child when my mother would chop, fry, boil and otherwise prepare hearty meals from scratch.  These were things that I took for granted until the birth of my own children and suddenly I realized the effort it took to prepare a complete meal after working all day.  Now that my kids are older, I want them to look back fondly on the time spent around the table but if the truth is told, I don't want to spend all of that time in the kitchen.  So what's a mother to do?

Recently I came across a blog by Cris Goode that described planning a weeks worth of meals and then preparing all of them and putting their contents into baggies or plastic storage containers to freeze.  Now, how is this supposed to save me money?  First, I am less tempted to eat out when I don't want to cook.  Second, I have to make a meal plan that will use the fresh vegetables that I have on hand.  Third, if the ready to cook meals are frozen, I will not have the waste of meat going bad before I get to cook it.  Now, add the coupon clipping idea to the frozen meal planning and I will be making a real dent in my outrageous food bill.

Who knows, if I manage to save enough on the grocery bill I might move on to other areas of my life like all of those nasty chemicals that I use to keep my house clean.  Hmmm.  Do I detect another project in the wings? Possibly.  

http://goodenessgracious.com

In The Beginning

Recently I was volunteered to be a Garden Manager for the local Community Garden Association by my employer.  To be honest, I was upset that my employer had agreed to me giving up my personal time away from work without first asking me if I would be willing to do so.  I soon learned that they thought that I would only be helping to plant a plot or two for our agencies consumers and that would be the end of the proposition. Oh, how wrong they were!  

A month into this arrangement, I have accepted the fact that I will be spending several hours a week watering a garden that is larger than my own fairly large back yard.  I can even handle pulling rocks and grass tufts from the burgeoning area during my weekends while my supervisor gets to enjoy his time away from work.  What I don't like, and never will is the fact that I take these things on with an abandon that must surely irritate my husband and children as they often get neglected in the process of all the time that a new project uses.  

Strangely enough, I have found that I am excited to be digging in the soil (as I am told it must be called) and planting enough for the entire year.  Ok, maybe not the entire year but it sure seems that way to me right now.  Our Head Gardener, Bruce, has assured me that I should not be required to devote more than 10-20 minutes to the garden a day but he does not know me very well.  When I accept a new endevour, I throw myself into the project to the point of idiocy.  I am already making big plans that involves an art piece as the center of the garden and possibly a cement bench to sit on when one gets too tired from picking the vegetables.  

I tell you all of this to say that during this process of "volunteering" for the Community Garden, I have re-happened upon a desire that has plagued me in the past.  This desire is to find a simpler way to live.  I want to grow a garden that will be not just readily available for my families dinner table but also produce enough fresh vegetables for me to freeze and preserve by canning.  In all honesty, I have never canned food before and it will be a learning experience for me but I am anxious to try it for the first time.  

As a small child I have memories of sitting in the hot summer sun, peeling blanched tomatoes so that they could be canned while at my step-grandmothers home.  But I digress.  The point is, I want to see where this desire to live a simpler life takes me.  I have seen the changes that have occurred during the last few decades and like others before me, I yearn back to those simpler days of my youth.    I am inviting you, dear reader, to join me in this journey of rediscovery and hopefully restore some of the skills that have been lost or at least neglected while we entered into the realms of modern society.