From Average to More Series: Shopping

If any of you know me personally, you might know that I am funny about shopping. I love to grocery shop particularly if I can do it alone or just with my husband. I enjoy the stocking up, the price comparison and the satisfaction of loading tasty ingredients to cook with into my cart. Shopping for clothing, shoes, gifts, large house hold items... I am NOT a fan. I stress over if I am spending too much and that I don't really need it. I just bought maternity clothes and it took me over a month to decide what I wanted to invest in despite having a generous gift card! I will mostly be writing about shopping for food and only touching lightly on all the rest.

So, groceries. These I have a mixed complex about. I absolutely love to shop for food and to have a well stocked pantry ever since I was a young teenager. However, in the past few years I have had the growing desire through my homestead knowledge to start to eliminate things off the grocery list by producing them ourselves or buying/trading as directly from a local source as possible. Currently we have succeeded in eggs from our own chickens, venison from hunting (which reduces our beef demand), pickles, some canned vegetables, limited amount of chicken meat (I'm almost out from December's harvest!) and we buy milk only from a Maine produced company. Sometimes this can be a tricky dance between ideals and affordability. We don't live on a lot of income and food is one of the costs that can be easily used to compensate when we have shorter months. Recently I have this urgency to really step up our efforts in supporting ourselves by producing as much of our 'storage' produce and beginning to find local farms to buy our meat products from that we can't yet raise ourselves. We will do a 'winter stocking up' over the growing season and buy as much meat as we can/need in the fall. I am hoping Montana Man will have good luck during hunting season so that we may exclude beef from our list. Wild meat is the healthiest you know! As you know if you have been following us, I will be adding milking goats this year so at the least we will not be buying our drinking milk. By next spring I should have enough milk from two does to start making some cheese and butter. If I am blessed with them having female kids then in three years I should have enough to not depend on the store for any dairy products and all the kids born after that will be sold to off set most or all the cost of keeping milkers. Now on to the action plan!

Weekly grocery shopping with three young children in tow may sound daunting or annoying at the least. So, what's a mama to do? Don't shop weekly! I'm going to shop once a month. Back in the day, you know, about 150 years ago people didn't shop even that often except those that lived in town. Shopping was seasonal or even a once a year event. While some day I would love to make our shopping a quarterly event, for now monthly will suffice. Amy at raisingarrows.net has a very well written series on shopping in her 'Large Family Living' section and honestly I do not feel the need to reinvent the wheel here! I am really pretty much using her methods but with my own personal touches.

What I plan to do is shop for the upcoming month at the end of month. My budget is something I have not yet decided on but I am thinking around $400. $350 of that will be used at the stores leaving $50 to be used at the farmers markets we will attend twice a month where we will get most of our fresh produce we aren't growing ourselves as well as honey and fresh seafood when available. The $350 spent at the store will also cover non-food items like plastic wrap, toilet paper and cleaning supplies. These non-food items may not be needed every month because we don't use many so then I would use that part of the budget to stock extra food to begin building a longer term storage pantry. The kids and I are the ones who primarily eat at home and are fairly simple eaters so I really don't see this being a huge challenge to make work. Special meals are often a joint effort both in preparation and cost in our extended family so small luxuries are not out of reach by any means. We eat well.

Ok, so where is all this food going? I did say our house was going to small, didn't I? Well, I have mentioned before having our daily pantry upstairs in our kitchen and a much larger one downstairs to hold the bulk of the stock including all our non-foods too. While I am not counting on it, I would love to see us add a solar deep freezer to the equation to allow greater storage of meats and things I prefer not to can (fresh berries for example). Montana Man and I are still deciding!

Just for fun I thought I would give a list of what I would like to stock this year 'for the winter' as the growing season goes on and where it will come from.

Strawberries- from a PYO farm locally to be made into jams and frozen whole for our smoothies.
Blackberries- from a friends land to be made into jelly and pie.
Blueberries- from a PYO farm locally that will be frozen whole for pie and smoothies.
Rhubarb- from our own patch to be made into syrup and frozen diced for pies and crumbles.
Apples- from a local PYO orchard that I am hoping to try storing whole for the winter in cool storage but also canned as applesauce and pie filling.
Root vegetables- from our own garden and bartering friends to can or store whole.
Green leafy- from our own garden and farmers markets to be fresh frozen (uncooked) for smoothies and blanched then frozen for quick sides and soups.
Squashes- from our own garden and FM's to be stored canned, or whole.
Beans and peas- from our own garden stored frozen, canned or pickled.
Tomatoes- from our own garden, FM's or bartering friends to be canned as many ways as I can!
Corn- from FM's and frozen (we don't eat much in a year).
Broccoli- from our own garden and frozen.
Potatoes- from our own garden and stored whole in cold storage.
Cucumbers- from our garden and I would like to try fermenting them this year!
Pork- raising our own to be butchered late fall.
Game- be it venison, fish or anything else, frozen.
Chicken and eggs- raise our own, butchering to be done in fall

To round out our pantry before the baby arrives I will be stocking up on our gluten free flours and such for baking as well as dried beans, rice and pastas. My goal will be to have enough on hand that a trip to the store won't be needed until about two months after the birth. When I think I am getting close I will do a big shopping trip to our local wholesale store and stock up. Perhaps I am also hoping pushing super heavy carts will cause me to go into labor. Wishful thinking!

As for other types of shopping, i.e. the kind I hate, I can't see that changing much right now seeing as I don't do much of it! I don't mind shopping online so that's what I usually do. I would like to focus more on finding locally made things that we need first and then USA made if local isn't available. Again this will come down to the balance of cost over ideals.

That's it for this week! Til next time.

From Average to More Series: The Car

This is an area of a growing family I have noticed is often an after thought. While this was not the case with us, the plan we had is one we are no longer pursuing in the near future. We have decided instead of increasing our debt beyond our comfortable point with our home equity loan, we will instead only consolidate as previously planned and pay off our current vehicle. That will financially put us in a very comfortable place of one loan payment (under $700 mind you!). Eventually it is our goal to be 'debt free' but we see borrowing against our home to more quickly set us up for other liberties to be a reasonable compromise. So, moving on to how I am going to revamp my mid-size SUV to accommodate a maxed backseat.

Our Trailblazer we bought last March.
First I will show you what a picture of 3 kids with my current carseats looks like...

My friends baby was in my infant seat while I was babysitting.
Squishy huh? Yeah, I felt bad for Puzzle Boy that day! This is the configuration I will have our kids in but I am going to swap out Mini Me's GIGANTIC carseat for...

After some research I happened upon this: a Diono Radian r100. It has a solid steel frame and is one the safest convertible seats out there. It is rated for birth to 100 pounds. It can rear face, forward face and be a booster. But the best thing is... it's the slimmest seat out there and specifically designed to fit 3 of these seats side by side in any midsized SUV or car. The only down side is the price! Just over $200 depending on which site you look at. I look at a seat like this as an investment. It has an 8 year expiration date with the harness and a 10 year as a booster with regular seat belt. I will probably buy another one when the baby out grows the infant seat to keep him/her rear facing longer. Most of our old seats have either expired and/or are baseline quality. I have made do but I really feel that we are in a place now to start making investments in family gear in general. Call it growing up if you will!

But, what about all the other stuff that we'll need to bring with us? Shopping days? A road trip?? Well, that's what the cargo area is for! One of the things that attracted me to my Trailblazer was the cargo capacity and the ease of it's use. I can easily use the lift gate with one hand and it's low enough to not make heavy loads a pain. Yet, it's still not that simple. We have a rather rugged stroller that I love and it easily takes up half the cargo space. While I like to have it with me all the time, for big shopping trips it has to stay home. And, that's OK with me! When I explain my new shopping methods, you will get why I am. But, even with it out I still have to make some modifications to make that open space more efficient. Right now things run around in the back when I drive. Like my washer fluid... it kinda sounds like a bowling ball back there. So I will be finding some nets to help contain everything from groceries to my cooler. No, they don't look very nice but they work and that's what matters.

Another thing that I need to work into my schedule is cleaning the car. When I had one child it got messy. With two it is a disaster. Montana Man drives it and the trash is crazy. Let's not even go there anymore. So weekly the car needs to be rid of trash, spills addressed (if I am unable to immediately) and given a mat shake out and general wipe down. Once a month it needs to be vacuumed, windows cleaned (inside!), fluids checked, washed and armor all-ed. I hate my car to be dirty and some where along the way I gave up. This is me reclaiming my vehicle!

Some of you may think, 'Geez, just get a minivan already!'. No offense, I don't do minivans. Our next up vehicle would be an Acadia which seats five in back. As of right now five kids is our MAX amount we are entertaining. If for some reason we had more (as in a surprise), we would kinda have to get something bigger. But that's a rabbit trail I'm going to avoid right now! Hahaha!

Til next week!

5 Tips to Eating On a Budget

I'm not going to give you a bunch of useless common sense tips that you could deduce on your own (like don't eat out every meal). But rather things I have just figured out for myself or have learned from my mother.

Buy whole ingredients. Sure you can get a really cheap box of something-or-other, but are you really getting a good deal? Realistically can you feed your whole family with one package or box? Let's take a seasoned rice for example. For $1 you get 3 servings of rice (6oz package, $2.32/lb). Or you could buy rice in a 10 pound bulk amount for $5.79 (57 cents/pound) and you get 116 servings and you get to make it whatever flavor you stinkin' want!

Don't buy your chicken cut up. When you look at the per pound price of chicken you will see there is a 2-3 dollar jump from a whole chicken to pieces whether boneless/skinless or bone in/skin on. This is because you are paying for labor. Same chicken but cut up buy some big guy in an bloody apron holding a cleaver. Get a good knife, watch a video on how to cut up a chicken and don't look back. Also, learn how to roast a chicken properly. Buying a fully cooked rotisserie chicken may save time but if you plan ahead, making your own roast chicken on the weekend and stashing it in the fridge doesn't take more than 15 minutes of actual working time.

Learn to like what's on sale. So, you like grapefruit. But, it's July. Grapefruit is wicked expensive right now because it's not in season. But, look! There is watermelon on sale! Dirt cheap. You just don't "feel" like watermelon. Get over it.

Bake. No, not get baked. Bake! Put wet stuff in dry stuff and mix up some magic! Like, today, I made two loaves of GF sandwich bread, one loaf GF cinnamon raisin bread and GF english muffins. For a few hours work I saved about $20. Not even kidding. Gluten free has a bit better return on making it yourself because it is a grossly overpriced specialty food, but you can see a pretty good return on the regular stuff too. If not in cost than at least in better quality!

And, shop with a list and a calculator. There are so many times I go in the store with only so much money and I can not go over! So, as I put things in the cart I add them up on my phone calculator. If I go over I pick something I don't 'need' and either don't grab or put it back. Yes, it's annoying to have to deny yourself, but less embarrassing than coming up short at the register (been there).

There are tons of other ways I make our tiny budget work. Feel free to ask me!

Til next time.

A Call to Simpler Living? Or is it Expected of Us All?

When Montana Man and I first started out together we expected to be "poor". And we also expected to be miserable about it! Ugh, talk about making lemons rot. Over the last few years I began to appreciate just having "enough". I still hated the months we fell short and sacrificed or went without, but I am now beginning to appreciate those days too. The Lord has never let us go hungry, naked or homeless. No, we have not always had all we want but we have been provided for, and well at that. To Him, I give great thanks! Here is what I have felt called to carefully examine as we prepare to build our house in the next few months: What is enough? Truly? This a question few people will answer honestly, I believe. I know I haven't always and will not always. The Lord has nothing against "happiness" but He does say it is fleeting and to find joy in Him. I have recently been reading a book of my mom's written in the 70's called Living on Less & Liking it More by Maxine Hancock. She uses her families own experience of hardship and also Biblical reference to show what kind of life style is pleasing to God. I have enjoyed it greatly. Lets explore this a bit shall we?

First a verse:

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where treasure is, there your heart will be also." - Matthew 6:19-21
Who/ what has your heart? Does it change daily or even hourly? It does for me! But He is a jealous God and wants our hearts! And He constantly steers me back to Him and shows me that He is what I need most. Yes, most. And He wants me to serve Him through being a good steward of the life, land and love he has given to me. And money.

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. - 1 Timothy 6:17-19
Simple of it is... money buys stuff! Stuff. The only thing you are going to care about (hopefully!) on your death bed is where your soul is going, not your stuff. Your kids will squabble over that! Well hopefully they won't if they heed to the Lord first ;-)

In the book, Maxine goes through every aspect of living and how to apply principles that are of good stewardship. At the root of taking on this lifestyle is a strong, Jesus centered marriage where the husband and wife are united in oneness. Money, in my mind is not worth fighting about. But Montana Man and I do. We just see differently, I am a saver, he a spender. We are working on it! But we both know we don't want debt, big bills or financial insecurity. It is a goal, not an overnight fix to all problems with money to declare the Lord our focus. But He will and does bless us for our diligence and attitude.

So, then what do you spend and on what??

Food. Bit obvious but it deems further explaining. Food is first and foremost for nutrition and Maxine explains this at length. I will briefly. Don't buy expensive CRAP. Buy whole food and cook. Can't cook? LEARN! Buying ready made dinners and takeout is not being a good steward of money or your body. There are some exceptions to this, like if you are traveling or you just had a baby and need a faster dinner solution. But even then there are creative ways to get around spending a bunch of money and also for others to bless you!

Clothing. I'm going to get in trouble for this one... Clothes are for covering your nakedness and warmth. Yes, they also can be pretty and "fashionable" but at the end of the day they end up in a heap in the hamper or on the floor. If you personally know me you will already know I HATE clothes shopping. It might be because I have body image issues (which is a whole 'nother can o' worms), but I also hate how much they cost! It's ridiculous, $20 for a shirt? $75 or more for jeans? No thanks. The majority of clothing I have worn in my life time have been hand-me-down, thrift or a gift. And I wear them until they are unwearable (sometimes longer hahaha!) Then there is the question of modesty. Told you this was going to get me in trouble. Ladies I'm going to be harsh. COVER UP. Not even joking. Not just Sunday, everyday. Boobs? Cover. Butt? Cover. Belly? Cover. Thighs where they connect to your crotch? COVER. Personally, I don't go above my knees much. Now, I am not saying be matronly. You can still be pretty but "sexy" should not be your focus (I sense another blog post on this one). Besides, beauty should be form within, and yes that really does show. Save sexy for your husband and a locked door ;-)

Housing. This is where being financially conservative people fail big time. No matter how you slice it, bigger here is not better. I will post more on this soon as there is a lot I have to say as we build, so don't start hating me yet. By the way, our new (and final) house plan is a log cabin with a comfy total of 665 square feet with options to grow. Keep your pants on! I know you must be so excited to hear how we will make that work with kids!

Giving. I will not go crazy here. Maxine outlines tithing, giving within a budget and giving with the right motives. Everyone who is a Christian is required to give. We tend to give our time and food because we don't have a ton of money but that will be re-evaluated soon and changed. Then I will feel more comfortable writing about it.

Transportation. The last area I will address today. This can be so broad and hard to manage perfectly. Most of us need a loan to buy a car. Personally we just traded my car for an SUV but I bought a used one with over 100K on it. It is not my ideal color or model, it does not get super gas mileage, but it fits our needs. I don't drive a lot so the greater gas mileage is not a huge problem for us. Our other vehicle is a 1996 truck. It has been fixed a zillion times but it still runs great and my husband loves it. We are grateful... most of the time! When they need fixing we could push them off a cliff. My basic point is, you don't need an SUV if you are single and live in the city, unless you own a bunch of dogs ;-) Buy only what you need!

I would encourage you to track down a copy of the book. Maxine says it so much better than me! But I feel strongly that the homesteading lifestyle demands these principles and felt inclined to share a little. Obviously this is a faith based concept and therefore not all will catch my drift but I would pray they be curious!

Want to share your thoughts? Go for it!

That Dirty Little Word...

Credit. It can be your best friend or it can be that superficial evil that keeps you from living a "normal" life. Gone are the days my grandfather talks about when he walked into a bank with his father and walked out with a loan. To get a loan for a house these days you practically have to give them your first born and half your liver. Ok, maybe not your first born, but you get my point here. We are faced with changing tactics in order to get us in a house of our own in the near future. First let me tell you about why we can't get a loan. It will make you run and check your credit report...

When my husband was a young thing, just out of high school and trying to make it on his own, he racked up some medical bills far out of his budget (no insurance) and a couple of utility bills from a roommate situation gone bad. Fast forward about 3 years and all of these bills are now in collections. Collections. There is another dirty word for you. This is not an uncommon scenario, many young adults left to fend for themselves end up with at least one collection. What this does to your credit in addition to a lack of positive history is detrimental. And you won't get a house loan. Period. Not even an FHA or RD. Sorry, Charlie, it just ain't your day.

So what do we do about this overwhelming hurdle? Well, you have to spend some money and do some waiting. First you have to get rid of all those collections. Yup, all of them. If they are older than 7 years they should get removed soon, so it's up to you whether you want to touch those or not. You want to take care of the most recent ones first, they are doing the most damage. Older ones are kind of a catch 22. When you pay off an old collection it brings it back to a "current" state which makes it look new and scary despite it being paid or settled. It will lower your score, there is no way around it. The only option for it to raise and not lower your score is if the collection agency kindly deletes it from existence from all 3 credit bureaus. So simple for them to do, yet so hard for you to get them to. Most agencies will slap you with "we don't do that" when you ask. There are many ways to tackle trying to convince them. You can go all old school and send a formal "pay for delete" letter which is slow and could be fairly aggravating. You can call and say if you want money you need to delete, which will more than likely get you a nasty retort and "have a nice day" *click*. (I got that one just 2 days ago!) And then you can settle and pay up with as much pride as you can muster, and do that one thing most hate even thinking about... beg. Send them a "goodwill" letter. Basically your aim is to make them feel sorry for you, tell them why you had a collection and why it is ruining your life. This blog explains it a bit better. What have we done? All of it. Has it worked? Time will tell.

Now what can you do to boost your score after you get rid of the negative? You borrow more money. Sounds counter intuitive right? Well, no. Basically a lender wants proof you got your s*it together. If you can handle a small loan or credit card they see you can handle a monthly payment. They want to see 3-6 current/open credit lines at all times:

One, they want to be a major credit card. If you don't qualify for a credit card, get a secure credit card like this one that reports to all 3 credit bureaus.
Two, they want to see a loan. Be it an auto loan or personal, they want to see at least a year if not two of perfect payment.
The third and others can be another loan or another credit card but you need 3 at the least. I, personally, have 3. A car loan, personal loan with MM and a major credit card with a decent limit. I have just about perfect payment on all. And I have good credit. So, what is the problem you ask? I am a stay at home mom. I have NO income. So I can't be a primary on a loan. Even if I was a primary, a joint loan looks at you both as a single unit, if one is bad, both are bad.

So, in summary, we can not do anything until we as a unit have better credit. At this point it is looking like the type of loan we will be eligible for will only pertain to an existing house, i.e. an FHA 203(k) or Rural Development. We will be diligently rectifying the collections, saving money and building credit over the next 6 months in hopes that it will be enough to move (after expected renovations) before late fall.

P.S. A little more about credit cards...

Keep all credit card balances below the 25% mark (30% is the ok but pushing it) but, regularly use at least 20% for maximum credit building.

Pay that bill on time and in full when you can (i.e. not just the minimum).

If you have a high balance, focus on paying it down first, it will boost that number the fastest.

If you can, get a card with cash back rewards and use the rewards to pay off debt or just save it. Don't, for the love of Pete, spend those rewards on stuff unless you could really spare the extra cash already.

A little tip I have discovered about payment and interest is if you pay your balance before your due date and pay it also twice a month you will save big bucks and make more headway on paying down a large balance.