How a Business Plan Can Lead to Personal Growth

Normal people who don't have business degrees may not understand the beauty of having a detailed business plan, but I submit to you that everyone needs a "Life Plan" that is structured like you're running a business. After all, if a business deserves a plan and a concentrated daily effort to keep it on the right track, isn't your whole life that important? Do a little soul-searching, and you just might be "falling" into every day without putting your own values and intention into it. That's no way to leave your mark on the world; that's just survival.

The U.S. Small Business Administration isn't usually a site you'd use for personal evolution, but its resources can help you walk through the process of writing a business plan for yourself, your home, and your family. While all three plans are interconnected, start with a plan for yourself. In that very first company description, you'll need to assert your guiding principles. Maybe it's a quote, a Bible verse, the Ten Commandments, or song lyrics, but make it personal. For me, almost every choice I've made in the past 10+ years has come down to one central guiding question: What did God intend? It's not exactly "What would Jesus do?," because I'm not God Incarnate. I'm a simple, fallible human, far from perfect but still here for a reason. Maybe many reasons. But that central question has helped me make decisions for myself and my family, and it's an integral element to the constant prayer conversation I'm having with my Creator every day. 

Find your question. Identify your strengths (gifts), weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT Analysis), and then write a detailed plan that will help you live with intention. Choose your friends wisely, and surround yourself with people who add value to every single day, people who lift you up and support your efforts at self-improvement. Spend your time with people who inspire you. Slowly begin letting negative influences (competitors/threats) go, and focus on becoming better. You define what "better" means to you, and then go after it. Use your gifts (products and services) to build up yourself and those around you, address your weaknesses with detailed project management plans, complete with daily steps you can take to reach your self-improvement goals. Then, stick to the plan. Set yourself up for success, and then work at it every day and celebrate milestones as you reach them.

Naturally, having a plan will help you stay within a budget and meet your financial goals, but starting with your personal plan is important. We all need little "wins" every day to boost our confidence, and it takes lots of confidence to stick to your financial guns when friends and family are spending like it's going out of style. Maybe it's because their goals are different. Maybe they don't mind being a slave to credit card companies, and maybe financial insecurity doesn't make them stress-eat. That's what it does to me, so I'm stepping off the beaten path and making a business plan for myself and my family. It's time to get down to the business of being "weird," as Dave Ramsey says. Luckily, I've had a lifetime of practice in that department.

What is your guiding question? Do you have a plan? Share it. Be weird. You can do it.

5 Ways to Save $8,500 in Baby's First Two Years

That whole “kids are expensive” argument is a young one, and based on spendthrift ideals. But, what if you just give kids what they really need and cut out all the superfluous crap? Then they're not expensive at all.

1. Breastfeeding saves at least $1,300 in your baby's first year of life (not including equipment). Dr. Grantly Dick-Read was a well-known physician who once said, “A newborn baby has only three demands. They are warmth in the arms of its mother, food from her breasts, and security in the knowledge of her presence. Breastfeeding satisfies all three.” For my purposes, breastfeeding my children also provided the peace of mind of knowing that I didn't have to worry about the cost of formula. I also didn't have to stumble around in the dark at night to make a bottle, so it appealed to my lazy side, too.
2. Cloth diapering saves nearly $1,500 in a child's first two years. Had I known more about cloth diapering before my boys were born, I totally would have crossed over to the cloth side. The cost savings are almost negated by using a diaper service for you big-city people who have that option, but it's still cheaper. Plus, a good set of cloth diapers will last through two kids, which saves even more.
3. Making your own baby food can save you almost $700 in the first 12 months your baby eats solids. This is where a steamer basket and a blender will carry their weight. Freeze finely pureed, steamed whole foods in ice cube trays, and each cube is an ounce of baby food that defrosts quickly and can be mixed with mama's milk to thin. Easy peas. Y.
4. Bedsharing  saved my life by allowing me better sleep, and it saved me about $700 on baby furniture and nursery “accessories.” There are lots of different opinions on how to bedshare or co-sleep safely, and some “experts” will tell you that it's dangerous, blah, blah, blah. For most people, it works. Some people should never consider it, especially if mom isn't breastfeeding. For those who don't sleep with baby in bed, consider a porta crib in your room. That'll still save you big money, and it doesn't have to be a fancy one. Plus, you can take it with you wherever you go and baby will feel right at home when it's naptime. Bonus!
5. Staying home the first year saves more than $5,000 in child care costs. And, if you cut out all the money-wasting expenses and pay down debt before baby comes, in most cases it CAN be done.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Dressing your baby in pre-worn clothes (or none when you're at home), making homemade snacks and avoiding unnecessary purchases (like “activity mats”) can add up quickly to some huge savings. Join the converstion and share your own favorite money-saving tips for babies!

Fresh Eggs Daily in 3 Detailed Steps

What if, instead of "reinventing" leftovers, you could convert them to brand new food? Believe it or not, it can be done even in most urban backyards with the help of some feathered friends. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to start keeping backyard chickens.

1. Check Local Ordinances on Backyard Chicken-Keeping

I realize not everyone can have chickens, but the urban chicken-keeping movement sure makes it easier to have a couple of hens in a backyard coop. While city ordinances may restrict the number of chickens you can have (check with the city before you go all chicken-crazy), your coop design and whether or not your girls can free-range, kitchen scraps are a great way to keep chickens occupied and recycle those scraps. You give chickens scraps like wilted lettuce, slimy berries and moldy bread, and they'll give you back a protein source that is rich in antioxidants and long-chain fatty acids. That's a trade you can't beat.

2. Select the Right Breed for Your Climate and Needs

Mother Earth News has a great Pickin' Chicken App for iPhone to help you select your breed. Also, Tractor Supply Company stores now carry heritage-breed chicks in partnership with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, which I think is a great cause aimed at preserving America's heritage breeds. The stores carry pamphlets with information about all the heritage breeds they'll be stocking during their Chick Days each spring. Select birds that are appropriate for your setup, and do plenty of research and preparation before you bring your girls home. Local feed store owners are an excellent resource for which chicks are the most popular in your area. They're also fantastic resources for local feed and emergency help.

3. Let's Pick Up Chicks

Love them, feed them, and name them George, and in just half a year or so, VOILA! Insert scraps, collect fresh eggs in the morning. It's a win-win.

(Note: Some people think chickens shouldn't eat meat, which I think is crazy since chickens are omnivores. But, your chickens will eat what you give them. It's totally up to you, so do your own research.)

Six Food Scraps You Can Regrow in Your Kitchen and Garden

Organic romaine hearts, 3 days.

Leftovers can be handy for creating new meals and feeding hungry chickens, but if you've ever had carrots sprout little roots in the crisper tray, you've witnessed the greatest thing about fresh food: it can grow MORE fresh food.

Imagine my excitement when I found out there was a book called, “Don't Throw It, Grow It!, ” that was all about growing food from your kitchen scraps! Sadly, I checked out the book from my local library and quickly realized that it wasn't about growing food at all. It was about growing pretty plants from your food scraps, and it was geared toward people living in apartments who didn't have the money to buy house plants. I'm not opposed to sprouting a sweet potato vine, but for my purposes of stretching our food budget, I wouldn't keep that vine in a pot on a windowsill. Plant that same sweet potato in a tire, bury all but six inches of the vine as it grows (by stacking tires and adding soil), and by the first hard freeze next year you have 20 pounds of sweet potatoes in a tire tower. Now, that's a recycling plan I can get behind. Other food scraps that can turn into food are:

1. Onion root ends, including green onions or scallions. Chop the onion, plant the roots and keep moist. You will grow another. Whole. Onion. I kid you not.
2. Carrot tops. Carrots produce seed in their second year, so grow your own carrot seed by planting the tops of carrots (usually sold at a year old) and sprouting the greens. The carrots you use must be non-hybrid/open-pollenated to guarantee seed production. Try organic.
3. Lettuce and greens. Put the root ends of romaine lettuce, celery hearts, turnips and beets in a glass full of water. Grow a salad in your windowsill.
4. Kiwi vines. Kiwi is a tropical fruit and likes it hot, with some watering to help it along. The vine grows FAST, and you need a few to guarantee you get a male and female so they produce fruit (technically, berries). Plant a slice of kiwi in a pot of soil, keep it moist and wait for seedlings.
5. Sprouted garlic cloves. Plant a clove of garlic in the early spring or fall, and in a few months you've got a whole head of garlic! Talk about return on investment.
6. Sprouted potatoes. Now's the time to cut those sprouted potatoes up, roll them around in some wood ashes to prevent rot, and put them in the ground, sprout facing up. Read up on growing potatoes, because you'll be doing it!

There are lots of other fruits and veggies you can plant, and some I won't try because they won't produce anything usable. Avocado pits may grow into nice trees, but they won't produce fruit north of Brownsville, Texas, unless they're in a 40-foot-tall greenhouse. My parents are currently growing teeny orange trees from seeds that sprouted in old fruit, but since most citrus and apples are grafted, these little trees may not grow true fruit. Only time will tell. The moral is, keep a stack of small paper or plastic cups and a bin of potting soil near your cutting board, and plant those scraps to see what grows. Then tell me so I can copy you and share with the class, m'kay?

The Best Tips For Eating Healthy on a Budget

People say it all the time: "It's expensive to eat healthy." I'm gonna hafta call that for the load of bull that it is, and I'll tell you why with an example from last night.

My children attend public school, and we all know what a cesspool that place can be with all those little nose-miners sharing much more than their glue sticks. (Ack!) My punks are snotty and have persistent coughs, and Facebook is lighting up with tales of the flu, so we had an immune-boosting supper last night to load up on some of nature's simplest medicine. Let's look at the menu and break it down by food group, and you'll see just how cheap it can be to eat well.

My garden helper, cutting and washing turnip tops. Oh, my heart!

1. Beverage: Water. We drink tap water, straight up. When the kids are fighting allergies or a bug, we stay away from sweetened drinks, artificial sweeteners and dairy. Fruit juice doesn't even make the cut because of sugar content, but I will sometimes allow fruit-and-veggie drinks (limited to one a day, of course). Tap water gets a bad rap sometimes, but get a filter for your faucet or a filter pitcher, and you'll still spend less than if you bought drinks, and your kids will be healthier. Voila.

2. Garlic toast. Normally, I limit the amount of bread my family eats if at all possible, and then it's usually only homemade (less than 50 cents a loaf for whole wheat bread). Last night we had some free whole wheat hot dog buns (thanks, Mom!), so I toasted them in halves and loaded them with a smidge of butter and SIX minced garlic cloves. It's spicy, but whatever they can get down, fresh, raw garlic is magic stuff when it comes to boosting the immune system and preventing infection.

3. Salad. We're in that phase where my boys whine about veggies (totally new to me, I've been spoiled!), so I make them as colorful as possible and sweeten the deal with a favorite dressing (homemade Ranch or Italian) and a tiny amount of shredded Parmesan to "fancy" it up. The ingredients, diced small: Organic Romaine hearts (worth it to buy organic for lettuce), red bell peppers (vitamin C powerhouse!), celery, cucumbers and carrot coins. Salad fixings vary depending on what's cheap at the store, but sometimes we also include apples, mandarin orange sections, sweet peas (frozen or from our garden) and pecans from our own front yard. Make a theme, mix it up and make it fun!

4. Chili Penne. This is my least-favorite part of the meal, but it's a concession to the pasta hounds. I used whole wheat penne pasta (bought on clearance at HEB for 75 cents a box) and dressed it while it was hot with leftover beef-and-veggie chili. I was told it was "awesome!," and gratified to see that my kids actually ate very little of it after the first course. Score!

Desserts at our house are rare, but I do allow yogurt and honey (or chocolate chips) when the kids aren't sickos. Otherwise, a chopped apple (with skin!) topped with cinnamon and microwaved for a minute makes an "apple pie" dessert that won't result in a psychotic sugar rush when it's time to wind down for bed.

So, instead of bottles and bottles of cough syrup at $4-7 a pop, I feed my family real food and water. It's important to buy organic only if it's important to you, and I'll spring for an extra 50 cents for organic lettuce and carrots. I can still feed my crew for less than $5 per meal, and although that messes with my food budget, it's a worthwhile trade-off to avoid hospital co-pays, antibiotic prescriptions and kids who feel yucky. Even for cheap moms, healthy meals are not only possible -- they're the essential ingredient to keeping the family healthy and sane.

Think outside the recipe: Pantry cooking saves money and time

Way back when our family lived on two incomes, I actually shopped for stuff called for in recipes. Now, I shop for the cheapest possible healthy items in food groups and find recipes (or make some up) that use what I have on hand. THAT is the concept of pantry cooking, and it's the one thing that can save you significantly on groceries.

First off, I have to say that if you don't have the More With Less Cookbook, get it. Find it used if you can, scour used book stores or garage sales, but get it. This is the only cookbook out there that has cheap people in mind and actually caters to pantry cooking and never wasting a morsel. Also, the recipes are low-sugar, which is great for my diabetic Hubs.

Today, I'd been de-nailing a pile of used lumber I'm going to recycle into a barn, and suddenly realized that it was 5 p.m., and I'd defrosted no animal proteins for the Chez Cheap evening meal. What's more, I'm pretty sure everyone is tired of canned green beans, and the five I picked in the garden... well, even I can't make those stretch far enough for four of us. In the fridge, I saw two heads of cabbage that were starting to look a little suspect, bacon ends and pieces (strictly for flavoring recipes, this stuff works great and it's super cheap as bacon goes), and five dozen eggs (from our chickens). When I was new to all this, I'd look in the More With Less index under “cabbage,” because that's what I had the most of that needed to be used, er, very quickly. Because I know my book so well now, and know what my family loves, I had three days' meals planned with that single glance in my fridge (Formosan Fried Cabbage with rice, Eggs Foo Yung, and Vietnamese Fried Rice).

If the fridge had been bare and I had gotten a head start, we could have turned away from Asian and gone more Mexican. A slow cooker (tightwad must-have) full of pinto beans can feed my family for at least a week, but I usually cook two pounds of beans so I can freeze some. (Think Bubba from Forrest Gump as I extoll the virtues of pinto beans, beans and corn bread, refried bean dip, bean and cheese tacos, bean and cheese nachos, fried bean patties, beans and rice, chili with beans, bean enchiladas...)

The bottom line is, you don't have to follow a recipe for every meal you make, and the ones you use the most should feature cheap food that's also healthy. Shop the stock-up sales, cook with what you have, and: Never. Waste. Anything. That's my cheapo mantra.

Earn a bigger "hourly wage," extend your financial resources

Whatever you decide to do to save money, both large and small changes can add up quickly. I once heard somewhere, “You can't be poor AND lazy.” So, when my ancient washing machine quit agitating, I had choices. I could:

1. Call a repairman, most everyone's first choice;
2. Throw out the old washer and buy a new one (EEK!), the spendthrift's first choice; or
3. Quit assuming I wasn't smart enough to fix a washing machine.

I Googled the machine's make, model number and “won't agitate,” and within five minutes had a plausible answer. Opening the top of the agitator, I confirmed that some little plastic cogs had worn down. The next day, I bought them for $4.85 at a local appliance repair shop. It took me 15 minutes to take apart the top of the agitator, clean out the pieces of the old cogs, slip the new ones into place and put everything back together again. The washer was good as new.

If I had paid a repairman to come to my house, it would have been $85 for the service call (I did call a local company, just to find out in case I couldn't fix it – there's that self-doubt again). They would then charged $50 an hour for labor (minimum of one hour), and I have no idea how much they would have marked up the parts, so let's keep the parts at $4.85. If the repairman fixed the washer in the same amount of time it took me, the minimum bill would have been $139.85. My total was about $15 including gas (I live 20 miles from the repair shop), so I saved $124.85, but that's not the important thing. The work I did in 15 minutes was worth $139.85, taking my hourly wage to $559.40 ($139.85 x 4, the number of times 15 minutes goes into 60).

That's the really high end of hourly wages. On the other end, there's clothesline vs. dryer ($6.00/hr) or keeping chickens ($5.16/hr, accounting for feed but not water because I use rainwater). Those low hourly wages are worth it to me for other reasons, though, so I'm willing to spend my time doing them for less than my base hourly wage (which I usually set at about $10/hr.). If it's not important to me and my hourly wage doesn't make the work worthwhile, I pay someone else to do it. I don't change the oil in our trucks because the hourly wage turns out to be less than $10/hr after buying the oil and filter. Also, I have a five-year-old running around and don't like to be under a pickup when he's with me. If you like getting used engine oil on your hands, don't mind finding a place to dispose of it, and don't have small children who want to crawl under there and “help,” it might be worthwhile to change your own oil.

Then again, you could always use a (*gasp!*) coupon for an oil change, which would bring your hourly wage way down or into negative numbers and just doesn't make DIY the sensible choice. Coupons ARE good for some things...

Using bulk buys to cut the grocery budget

It's not that we eat tuna all that regularly. It's not that I'm prepping for the zombie apocalypse. It's just that, when I find that deal that's so good I have to post it on Facebook (you know you've done it), I don't ever buy a sensible amount. I buy almost everything on the shelf.

There's a little controversy surrounding stock-up buys. Some people say it's not fair for one person to buy two cases of tuna because it's a loss leader at 2/$1. I say, since when is life fair? Everyone else should have gotten there sooner, because my pantry will be stocked with cheap food for as long as I can keep it that way (50 cents for a 5.5 oz can of tuna is a protein source at less than 10 cents an ounce). When I find that once-a-year deal, I have to be able to pay for it, and that's where a stock-up fund comes in handy. It's the cushion that allows you to buy your normal grocery budget while stocking up on the occasional awesome deal. Normally, $100 is a good amount to budget for unexpected windfalls, but if you can set aside more, that's even better. These are the sales that will get your grocery spending down further than you ever imagined was possible, so don't be shy – buy everything you are comfortable buying. Store it under a bed or a couch if you run out of room in the kitchen.

Of course, spotting these super awesome deals means knowing your prices and/or carrying your price book. Hubs glanced away for a moment at the grocery store last week and was SHOCKED, I tell ya, when he looked back and saw me loading 10 pounds of butter into the cart. I explained, gently, that butter is a staple and staples don't ever go on sale, so 30 cents off is a big deal for butter (which is yet another thing that freezes beautifully). If I had a decent sized deep freeze, I would have gotten three times as much as I did: it was the cheapest I had ever seen it. I'm still kicking myself for only bagging up seven pounds of free mangoes at the local Mexican market last week. D'oh!

Some women brag about some fancy shoes they got for 10 percent off. I brag about a year's worth of coffee for $54, or two months' supply of milk for $5 (freezes!). My shoes, by the way, are $120 shoes that someone got a "great deal" on, then wore twice and sold to me for 50 cents at a garage sale.

The top 5 items every frugal foodie needs

Multitasking is something lots of people are good at, but how good are your kitchen tools at multitasking? When you have a small kitchen, a small budget and value your time, there are five multitaskers you must find at garage sales to help maximize your hourly wage.

Big-ticket item No. 1: Bread machine

I live in Texas, and it gets HOT. Bread is expensive to buy, but super cheap and a lot healthier to make. I do not, however, want to heat up my oven when it's 110 degrees outside. My bread machine was free (thanks to a super awesome cousin/best friend who got it at a garage sale for 20 bucks and shared the love – thanks, TripleR!). It is the Cadillac of bread machines, a Zojirushi with so many settings you can't even shake a stick at 'em. It takes me three minutes to load and set it, and when we wake up in the morning, it's to the smell of fresh-baked bread. (Wipe your mouth, you're drooling.) Buy a bread machine cheap, and cross bread off the grocery list. BIG savings.

Foodie must-have item No. 1: Good knives

We have pretty expensive knives, thanks to some generous wedding guests. The thing is, we usually only use the paring knife, the 10-inch chef's knife and a cheapo bread knife we stuck in the block with the stuck-up Henckels guys. So, instead of buying the whole block for $399, you could just buy individuals and put them in a cheapo block. They're still mind-numbingly expensive for knives, but dull knives in the kitchen are dangerous, and these last for. Frickin. Ever. You'll thank you.

Mom must-have item No. 1: A blender

Smoothies are a mom's best friend, and no store can sell salsa that's as good as what Hubs can whip up in the blender. Plus, it's handy for making ranch dressing. Did I mention smoothies? Old, mushy fruit (and even lettuce, a.k.a. a “Shrek Smoothie”) goes into a baggie and into the freezer, then straight into the blender with a little milk, yogurt or just water for an awesome summertime snack. My kids think it's a treat. Gosh, even our snacks are multitaskers!

Girlie splurge item No. 1: A KitchenAid stand mixer

I would NEVER have purchased this for myself unless I found an awesome Craigslist deal, but Hubs went behind my back and bought it for Mothers' Day one year. It makes any kind of baking such a breeze, and kneads specialty breads for me so I can do other stuff. You can find lots of attachments for sale online that have been barely used that make it a sausage grinder, ice cream maker, pasta machine and maybe even a really good mixer. And it's pretty. So, so pretty. My precious...

Alternative to pricey stuff item No. 1: A food processor

There are plenty of pricey food processors out there, but lots of people ask for them when they get married, then sell them at garage sales about five years later after using them once. This is a must-have for making baby food, but can also mix and knead doughs just fine. It also whips up some dreamy pesto with fresh basil from the garden. Oh, and it chops veggies like a champ. Even those miniature versions like the Magic Bullet do just fine, and can also take care of a lot of your blending needs, too. They can even take care of a lot of your “blending needs,” too. Like frozen margaritas after a whole day of very organized freezer cooking.

Project: Salvage-Style kitchen island for less than 30 bucks

OK, I'll admit it. I have a lot of pet peeves. People who say, “libary.” Misspellings or incorrect punctuation in advertisements (I will never shop there). Shipping film left on electronic devices and appliances (eek!! Must...peel...).

But maybe my biggest pet peeve is people who claim they're selling something frugal, because it's a bold-faced lie. Frugal can't be bought, that's the whole POINT. If you have to buy something to call yourself frugal, thrifty, or any other popular label floating around cheapo-world these days, go ahead.

But I don't have to like it.

Case in point: I got an e-mail from a home improvement warehouse that sometimes offers good tips or pretty pictures I can get ideas from. Their big sell this time? “Salvage Style Kitchens.” They take stock cabinetry and make it look funky by adding ginormous wood corbels to kitchen islands, “distressing” the paint to make it look old and worn, and then charging three times more than they would normally (it was seriously like $1,400 - I snorted!). Really? Like any self-respecting trash picker would pay $125 each for mismatched milking stools that aren't even the same size. We'd use the stuff if someone gave it to us or we found it on the curb, but why on Earth would I spend thousands of dollars on stuff I can find and/or make for nearly free?

"Salvage style" $22 kitchen island, made out of two free bathroom vanities. Note super-stylish salvage bar stool at right, next to the dog's bowl, which came with the dog.

I must be way ahead of this trend, because my entire home is in true “salvage style,” which I love because it's free or nearly-free. My kitchen island is fast becoming the latest object of my affection. Right after we moved into this house, I saw an ad on Craigslist for two free bathroom vanities. The Most Awesome Goat Rancher I Know helped me load them up and get them home, and I put them in the kitchen, back-to-back. Mr. Rancher then built a custom-made top for my cabinet island, and it became functional. My boys and I recently (finally) painted the whole base a soft green (paint was given to us), and I (finally) installed some hardware I bought two years ago at an actual salvage store. Total cost for my island: $22. Now if I can just decide whether to use tile or laminate on top, it'll be finished.

Guess I'll be watching the curbs to see what turns up...

Preserving Garden Abundance

On our little homestead, summer means it's super hot, the garden is cranking out the produce, and we're doing everything we CAN to keep up. And can, we must.

We are super lazy gardeners, so really industrious people can produce a lot more food in a 1,000-square-foot garden than we do. Still, our garden goodies combined with some excess from friends, and here's what we've added to our pantry so far (in about the last week):

• We turned about 75 pounds of cucumbers into 4 gallons of gherkins (fermented pickles, which are "cooking" in the entry closet), 7 quarts of kosher dills, 4.5 quarts of sandwich slices, 7 pints of relish and a gallon of cucumber kimchi. (About to make more of that... so awesome!)
• Our fig trees took the year off last year during the drought, so they're pumping out fruit this year at a rate of about 2-3 gallons a day. I usually make fig preserves, but I already made 7 pints with what we had in the freezer, so I'll make more of that, but I'm "branching out." I'm thinking fig syrup and rosemary-fig preserves. Now to get that goat so I can make goat cheese...
• A friend gave us a bag of assorted cayenne, banana and jalapeno peppers, so we pickled the whole peck of peppers. That made for four pints and some giggly tongue-twisters for the boys.

 All in all, it's not a bad start to the summer. Gotta get back to it now; on the menu today is zucchini and tomatoes and all... those... figs. And maybe cream-style corn. And, if anyone has creative ideas for using up figs, please let me know!

Plan a Break From Frugal Fatigue

We all have different goals for the money we're struggling to save, and sometimes those goals change as they get closer. Our goal was to survive at first. When we mastered survival on one income, we began paying down years of debt (credit cards and an expensive truck). Now that the truck is paid off and the credit cards are ancient history, we're working on this little house so we can upgrade sometime soon.

But, before we do, we're gonna lighten up a little.

SMH! Another dinner out??

After all, we don't take vacations, and we don't buy expensive toys except maybe once every three years. So lately, we're taking a “break” from some hard and fast rules of being tightwads. Some people need breaks from being squeaky, and I get it. I'm married to one. And, I'd totally be lying if I said I didn't love going out to dinner once in a while. It hurts my frugal heart to pay the bill, but when it's time to lighten up, it's just time. That time, for us, is summertime.

I'll just make up for it secretly in other ways. Like, feeding my family what we're growing instead of buying veggies. Like, stocking the freezer with a few extra roosters and getting creative with eggs. I'm not scared of you, summertime spending – just let me take a deep breath and set my goals aside to review later. I'm jumping in! (sort of)

Hey! Find us on Facebook and Twitter. We get downright silly, for a bunch of cheapos. Plus, you'll get stream-of-consciousness tips as I think of them, moment by moment! Well, I usually think of one a week, and I may or may not remember to post it. There's always a chance, though! - Becky

Ode to a Mama Chicken (and free chicks)

Chicken math is loosely defined as the inability to ever have “enough” chickens, and the assurance that your chicken population will increase to meet and exceed the space you have available for housing said poultry. I've never really liked chickens and was even afraid of them before we raised our first chicks, but once I got used to having nearly a dozen fresh eggs everyday, I got way over it. I. Love. Chickens.

This year, I had enough chickens to fill the free coop on our place, but the problem was, the brooder was empty. We couldn't have that. I bought 15 new chicks (five of which are little fluffballs that I splurged on just for fun) and set up the brooder, and the next day I had a hen go broody. Her name is Bertha. She's a Buff Orpington, a super fluffy yellow chicken, and she growls and is uber-offended when I take her off her 11 eggs once a day so she will eat. She chases us, chases the cat, chases the dog and the other hens. (The rooster is in solitary, awaiting his trip to freezer camp. That change is, I'm guessing, what made her decide to raise babies while she could.) It has become a source of great enjoyment for all of us to watch Bertha get all mad and fluff up her feathers and cluck, and Lord, don't let another hen think she's going to sit on Bertha's nest. It sounds like a chicken massacre with all the squawking and growling and indignant screaming. (Yes, chickens scream.)

Broody Bertha, well-rested and giving me the "stink eye."

So this morning when I got Hubs and the elder bambino off to school, the younger one and I started preparing for hatch day this Friday. We got a regular old cardboard box, turned it on its side and filled it with shavings, then attached it to the floor of the coop so the babies wouldn't have far to fall if they fell out of the nest. What surprised me was that Bertha was off the nest when I went outside to let the girls out. Then I heard the most ear-splitting growl/screech you can imagine, and realized that the eggs were still nice and warm... under another hen. She was warning me to back off, because this egg-sitting is serious business. Apparently, after 17 days Bertha got tired of doing this whole thing by herself and needed some time off, so she hired a surrogate broody to give herself a break.

Sounds like there's a lesson there, doesn't it?

Cheep, cheeper, cheepest: Three phases to the cheapest eggs, ever

There's just nothing better than free stuff, and that's how I got on this whole chicken kick that's taken over our homestead. In my search for cheap protein sources that weren't beans, I learned how complete the protein in eggs is, and how cheap it is per serving. I think for a dozen eggs at the store, when I caught them on sale, they were around 8 cents a piece. Even at regular price, 10 cents for 12 grams of complete protein is nothing to sneeze at. But, I also knew how OLD store eggs are by the time they get there, and I thought if we're doing the fresh-food thing, our eggs should be fresh and free-range, too. (No WAY was I paying $4 a dozen for organic, “cage-free” eggs at the supermarket. That just means they're all shoved into a closed-up barn all together, anyway.)

Phase one of the egg project was a small step: I started buying local eggs at the feed store. People around here whose chickens produce more than they can eat, sell them for $1 a dozen to the feed store. The feed store sells them for $1.70. It messed up my pricing because it wasn't the cheapest, but this concession was worth it to me. I mean, have you ever tasted a fresh egg? No way would I ever buy store-bought eggs again. I am such an egg snob now.

So a few months passed, and sometimes the feed store had eggs and sometimes they didn't. I kept cruising Craigslist's free postings, and came across an ad for two free chickens. Aha! We loaded up and drove 40 minutes to see these chickens, which were what was left of a classroom hatch that a teacher was giving away. She had one of those nifty chicken tractors that allow chickens to free-range just by moving it to new grass every day, and when I complimented it, she said, “Take it.” She gave us feed, feeders, waterers, the chicken tractor, and two young chickens, and that's how we moved into Phase Two of the egg project.

The free tractor coop, with chickens snugly in the upper level during a freak Texas snowstorm.

Our first egg was cause for celebration; we took it to my parents' house, fried it up and everybody had a bite. It was unbelievably awesome. Before long, I found a big coop (free) and raised my own baby chicks that I bought at the feed store when I bought eggs one day (Enter: Phase Three). We've had lots of chickenish adventures and chicken poop on the front porch every day, but the best part is having so many awesome, free-range eggs that I've been giving them away. (We've also had a couple of tasty roosters, but that's another story.) And yet, we're not done: we have 15 new chicks in the brooder and – wouldn't you know it? -- a broody hen sitting on 11 eggs in the coop. Time to find a new free coop or two...

DIY convenience foods: Feed the freezer

You've probably read blog posts or articles about super talented and organized people who spend one day a month “freezer cooking.” These people spend 8-10 hours putting together meals they can freeze and pop in the oven for quick dinners, and they are my heroes. I'm just not that organized.

Being disorganized and responsible for the entire homestead 9 months out of the year makes for some harrowing mealtimes, so yesterday I spent the entire day cooking breakfast. I rarely have a plan when I start cooking, so what I ended up with is a freezer full of breakfast rolls (dinner rolls filled with bacon, egg and cheese), french toast bars (using a failed batch of biscuits) and cinnamon rolls. I figure it's about a week's worth of breakfasts, and they're packaged in foil to go in the toaster oven for about 20 minutes in the morning.

Since these breakfast creations came about through trial and error, it's tough to compare them to store-bought frozen breakfast items. But, I'm pretty sure they're more healthy and cheaper being made from scratch. Freezer cooking is probably really worth it if you're organized. Personally, I prefer adding to the freezer a little at a time. If I make a pot of beans, I put half in the freezer after a quick soak. After cooking, I put half of the remaining cooked and seasoned beans in the freezer. That leaves me with a half-pound (before cooking) of pintos, which we can take care of in one meal. If I choose to reinvent the rest of the beans on subsequent days, I can do it by taking the frozen beans out in the morning. If not, they have fed the freezer stash and are a cheaper alternative to frozen pizza when I'm in a hurry or have stepped on half a dozen rusty nails and can no longer stand up to cook supper.

However you do it, one big tightwad rule is “feed the freezer.” Some families don't like leftovers, and can even recognize reinvented ones the next day. But, put those same leftovers in the freezer, wait a couple of weeks to reinvent, and, voila!: brand new food. It doesn't just work well for leftovers, either:

• Cheese. Calculating price per ounce for my price book, I discovered that a nearby members-only store had the cheapest cheese in town, but it came shredded in 5-pound bags. When I get it home, I fill five, one-pound freezer bags and put four in the freezer. Shredded cheese freezes like a champ, and can even be used frozen if you forget to take it out to defrost. Bread crumbs from slicing homemade bread, and the heels of some tougher loaves, go into a bag in our freezer labeled “bread crumbs.” When it's full, I give it a whirl in the food processor, pour in a little butter and some herbs, and it makes homemade macaroni and cheese downright gourmet.
• Fresh herbs. We use a lot of cilantro around here, but we never could use it fast enough to prevent the black slime from claiming it in the crisper drawer. Dried cilantro just isn't the same as fresh, so I tried a tip I read. Chop and freeze fresh herbs (works for all I've tried), just by themselves, in a jar. When you need some for a recipe, flake some off the top with a spoon, and you've got that fresh-herb flavor without the time constraints of fridge storage.
• Milk. Cow's milk from the grocery store has become less of a staple for us as we've found other ways to get our calcium, and a $3 a gallon, it's a good thing. To make it go even further, I buy whole milk and cut it to approximate 2 percent milk. I get the gallon home, pour half into a clean gallon jug and freeze it. I fill the unfrozen milk jug the rest of the way with water, and do the same with the frozen jug about two days before we need it. This trick effectively cut my milk costs in half. It isn't for everyone, but my children aren't toddlers and no one in my house needs whole milk, so this works fine. (If you do this, though, add milk powder before trying to make pudding or yogurt. Cut milk lacks enough milk protein to make most recipes “set up.”)
• Dry goods. Combat weevils in flours, dried beans and rice by putting them in the freezer for at least 48 hours once you get them home from the store. That amount of time in the freezer will prevent any weevil eggs from hatching (and believe me, they're in there), and if you put them in a sealed container right away with a bay leaf on top, your weevil problems will be gone.
• Water. If all your freezer-feeding efforts still haven't filled it to capacity, put plastic water jugs in the freezer just to make it run more efficiently. All those energy-efficiency experts say freezers and refrigerators run better when they're full, so save money by keeping them that way. And, when you find that 49-cent-a-pound turkey deal, take out all the water and dry goods, serve up some of the leftovers and fill your freezers with your latest stock-up buy!

What's that? You say you only have the freezer-fridge that's in your kitchen? Maybe it's time to talk about high-value tools that every frugal chef should watch for at garage sales...

Starting a price book means never having to head-slap yourself for paying too much

A price book is a notebook you organize to suit your shopping habits, in which you record a product's price per ounce (or serving, if you prefer), the brand, size of the container, store name and date. A cold cereal category might look like this:

Brand Name	Package Size	Store	Date	Price per Oz
HCF Corn Flakes	18 oz	East Side Grocery	04/06/12	0.087

(If using software to make your price book, I just realized you need to set your number format to text so it won't automatically round your price per ounce to the nearest penny.)

When you're first starting a price book, I recommend going to the store without children, if at ALL possible. At least for me, when there's math involved, it must have my undivided attention if it's going to be anywhere close to accurate. Use a calculator to figure price per ounce or serving; don't trust the handy-dandy price per ounce on the shelf tag that some stores provide. That number is sometimes wrong, so figure it yourself.

Calculate the prices of everything in a certain category that you are sure your family will eat, and then decide on a maximum price per unit (price point) you're willing to pay. For cold cereal, I don't pay more than 11 cents an ounce. Don't assume that larger quantities (such as huge bags of cereal) are cheaper; that's what manufacturers want you to assume. Those bags sometimes cost double what smaller boxes cost. What happens when I don't find cereal that is less than my highest price point? We don't have cereal.

Keeping a price book can help you track store sale cycles (usually 3 months). It can also save you time at the store if you're buying loss-leader items, because you'll know in advance if they're good buys for you. Loss-leaders are advertised sales, usually on the front and back pages of a sales circular, on which the store takes a loss. They're hoping that great deals will entice you into the store and you'll spend money on other things so they'll recoup that loss, but an ad scheme is no match for a smart shopper with a price book.

A few of my price points:

• Cereal: 11 cents an ounce
• Fresh fruit: $1 a pound
• Cabbage: 33 cents a pound
• Potatoes: 30 cents a pound (good cheap food, but “junk” food in my book)
• Ground meat: $1.50 a pound
• Bone-in meat: $1 a pound

Just a note: adjust your price points with inflation. The cost of everything has gone up about 33 percent recently, and it's only going to go higher as gas prices increase.

Can you eat on $50 a month? Sure you can, with a few lifestyle tweaks

My family of four, on average, eats for a grand total of $200 a month. Sound impossible? It's totally possible, but first you have to know what you are currently spending on groceries. I'll hold your hand, because it's pretty scary when you actually know.

The most flexible portion of any budget, after entertainment and dinners out (if those are in your budget), is groceries. When Hubs and I found ourselves suddenly living on one income, I sat down and figured out a budget that allowed $400 for groceries. I figured this was pretty close to what we were spending, but knew I needed to know for sure. I kept grocery, restaurant and fast food receipts to figure out how much it cost us to eat one month, and the grand total was staggering. We spent nearly $700 just on food. That was a number that was incompatible with our financial solvency, so we immediately:

• Cut out all food not cooked at home.
• Eliminated almost all pre-packaged foods.
• Began keeping a log of all the food we had to have, where we bought it, when, and how much it cost (per ounce).

Soon I began to notice patterns at my local grocery store. Sales repeated every three months, so I learned when to stock up. We were blessed with a small freezer at the perfect price (free), and I discovered that just after Thanksgiving, turkeys went on clearance for 59 cents a pound. That freezer holds seven large turkeys, I discovered.

Within a couple of months of finding the best prices per ounce for staple foods, following sale trends and getting back to real, homemade food instead of processed food, we cut down to $400 for our grocery spending. That's when I got creative, and shaved off another $200 a month for a sustainable average of $200 a month to feed all four of us. And that, my friends, was just the beginning.

You call that a clearance? Five steps to saving actual money on markdowns

You know the feeling. From across the store, you see an orange price sticker on top of another price sticker, and your palms get sweaty. You thread your cart carefully through displays and past other shoppers, trying not to appear anxious or walk too quickly, all the time thinking, “Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, clearance stuff!” You can actually feel the adrenaline begin to surge as you find THE bargain of the day.

The thing is, sometimes those haphazard piles of stuff aren't really a bargain, but store managers have figured out that those orange tags and clearance bins are magnets for wannabe savers. If you really want to find the great bargains, it's going to take some detective work and discipline that could pay off, big-time. Follow these magical steps to get your tightwad juices flowing:

1. Find department managers and ask them when the sales are. This is especially true at a grocery store. My favorite store bags up clearance produce every Monday night at 7 p.m. The meat counter does its markdowns Tuesday at 7 a.m., so I shop Tuesday at 8 a.m. (Make sure they're actually good deals – see step 3. And remember, lots of this stuff freezes well!)
2. Ask somewhere where the clearance items are located. Periodically, this changes, so making friends with a certain cashier can get you some “insider” information.

3. 

   Next year's Valentines for the boys.

   Know. Your. Prices. Knowing the regular price of a certain type of item is key to saving green. If there's a basket full of wasabi peas for $3.50 per can, but they're regularly $3.65, I don't call that a clearance. It's a “special treat” food, and with little nutritional value, I'm still not paying that much for it. Gourmet ketchup for $3 a bottle is not a bargain when the regular price for store brand is $1.98.
4. Know your price point. I know I'd buy the entire basket of wasabi peas (Hubs loves 'em) if each can was marked, say, 50 cents. Do not waver on the price points you set for yourself.
5. This could also be Rule No. 1: Do not buy things you wouldn't ordinarily buy. A great deal isn't a great deal if you wouldn't buy it otherwise. I don't need Bump-Its, even when they're marked down from $10 to $1.50. It's a great deal... for somebody else.

I think maybe my favorite step up there is number three, but it's also the one that takes the most time and effort. How do you really get to know your prices on a personal basis? Follow me and let's find out...

What is Aeropostale, and why should I care?

First off, let me say that I'm just a regular person and the ideas I have aren't new.

Are you still here? Hellooo?

You see, I've been living this super-tightwad life for several years now, constantly finding new ways to pinch pennies, falling off the wagon and getting back on again. And, I keep learning stuff and living this life and, while it's old hat to me now, every time I open my mouth about the things I do to save money, people act like I've just invented this cool new widget that I must share. Huh.

I started looking into it because I didn't think it needed to be done. I figured all this stuff was covered, what with all the frugal, thrifty coupon sites out there. Heck, I was subscribed to a lot of them. But, as I found myself unsubscribing from the blogs and sites that hawked coupons and ways to save $10 at Aeropostale (what?), I realized that maybe I did have something to offer.

This is not a site for the faint of heart, although if you think you can't do the stuff I do to live the life you want, you might just surprise yourself. I haven't worked outside our home since 2007. On a teacher's salary, we've bought a house with land in the country. We are well on our way to being debt-free, we're healthier than we've ever been, and I have lots of pretty little chickens and two happy country boys to show for it. And, I've gotten to live my dream and raise my kids. That's the most valuable part to me, and who knew I could get there by changing my attitude and washing some Ziplocs? You can, too. Follow me to some sheer tightwad awesomeness...