Free Food

I brought my lunch to work on Wednesday and it is still sitting in the fridge here at work. No, I’m not on a fad diet; quite the opposite actually. The officers here at work have had meeting this week. When they have leftovers, they are put into the break room for everyone to enjoy. Yesterday, I had a really nice egg, sausage, & cheese concoction on a flatbread. There were enough of those left for me to take a few home for dinner last night. Today, I had a bacon, eggs, and cheese croissant and fresh strawberries and pineapple chunks.

Some of the people here turn up their noses at the food because it is “leftovers”. I guess I’m of the mindset that if I do not have to eat the lunch I brought today it will be good tomorrow. I don’t snub freebies as long as they are properly contained. Free is free after all!

Thrifty Lunches

Thanks to an idea I saw on a blog yesterday (sorry I forget which one), I made up a big container of pasta salad. This is a great lunch or snack for me to take to work. My whole container (at least 10 -15 servings) cost me less than $2.25.I had a free bottle of Italian salad dressing from my mom. Next time I will have to pay for dressing but that will make it about $3.25 for the batch.

Garden Rotini Pasta ($1)
2 Cans of Tuna – drained well ($1)
1 Bottle of Italian salad dressing (Free)
Garlic Salt & Pepper (5cents?)
Sprinkle Parmesan Cheese (20 cents?)

I just ate a snack of it and boy is it good!!

Thrills

Do any of you get a thrill out of knowing that your clothing costs significantly less than that of your peers? Perhaps I am strange but I think about these things on my way to work in the morning (hey, I have a 20 mile commute!).

I work in a corporate office. We dress business casual Monday – Thursday and have “jeans day” on Friday. Today’s outfit (minus panties and bra) cost me about $1.

I am wearing a long khaki skirt (free), a light orange knit shirt (free), and Bass brand sandals ($1 at a yard sale). The free items came from a local freecycle group or from some items hubby found at work (he works in apartment maintenance and gets some stuff from time to time). The skirt is “Tape measure” brand which I know is sold at Macy’s (I bought some shorts in this brand 11 years ago!). The shirt is “Lands End”.

The things I wear are not crappy, polyester, out of date things. I look appropriate for the workplace. My clothing is comparable to that of my co-workers. The only difference is that I spend significantly less. In fact, I would be willing to bet that my entire closet full of clothing for both myself and my husband costs less than one week’s worth of business outfits for my co-workers (not including shoes)!

Yeah, I get my thrills in strange ways!!

Frugal Blogroll

I have to admit that I've been a secret reader of Life in a Shoe for quite a while. While I am not a mother to numerous children or anything, I do admire the moms who have a large family. I am not able to bear children myself and hubby had a vesectomy while married to his ex-wife.

Anyway, today, while reading some of the frugal blogs, I noticed that there was a Frugal Blogroll. While I am still a novice in the blog-world, I thought it would be a good idea to be invoved in a blogroll that supports ideas that I believe in.

That being said, I jumped in and joined The Frugal Blogroll. I hope that those of you with frugal blogs will join too!

Falling Off the Wagon

Hello, my name is Kali and I’ve fallen off of the wagon.

This is where you’re supposed to say “Hi Kali”.

As a result of circumstances beyond my control (i.e. excessive spending by my spouse, vacation issues, etc.), I am seriously in debt. I do not want to dwell upon how I got into this hole; instead I’m going to do whatever I can to dig myself out. I am going to be positive and put my best self forward.

There is really no way for me to earn more money at my job so I will instead focus on shaving money off of our daily living expenses. Please do not suggest I get a second job. I physically cannot take on any additional work. I have fibromyagia and working one job is difficult enough. My husband, however, is willing and able to take on additional duties. He is trying to get a bit of overtime from his job in the next few weeks. We also are promoting his side business in the hopes of obtaining a few night or weekend jobs.

The main area where we can save money is on food and spending. We have a habit of going out to eat WAY too much. This costs quite a bit of money ($30 at a sit down restaurant) and also allows the food at home to spoil. In order to cut down on this, I will be taking a more active role in planning and cooking our meals.

Our weekly food budget is $60 for food, beer, and soda. Hubby drinks soda and the occasional beer so I add that into our budget. However, if I will stay on top of things and make tea and lemonade, he will drink at least 1/3 less of soda. He does drink generic soda ($0.58 per 2 liter) so I cannot complain too much. We also allocate $50 per month to purchase Angel Food packages.

I would like to get this down to $30 per week by supplementing with our Angel Food products. This is going to be a challenge for me. The Aldi Queen had an Iron Chef Moms Challenge last week that inspired me. I want to calculate the cost of our meals for the week. It would be nice to see just where our food dollars are going. By lowering the food bill by $20 per week, I will have nearly $100 per month that can go toward paying down our horrible debts.

I would also like to get our spending down. This is yard sale season so I will be going out shopping. However, I will buy only gift items and clothing to replace items currently worn out. There is no need to get more clutter for my house. Yard Sale season does lower our bills at the store. I often find household repair items there for cheap.

Our household money is a modest $50 per month. This can EASILY be shaved to $25 per month with some minor tweaking. We do need specialized toilet paper, OTC sinus meds, ibuprofen, and personal hygiene items monthly. Other than that, we just buy things that are not really needed.

There is little wiggle room in our budget. We save a mere $200 per month and pay out $400 toward our credit card debt. Basically we’ve screwed up royally and now we have to pay the piper, so to speak.

I refuse to be negative. I will be positive about this and learn from my mistakes.

Vacationing the Frugal Way

You know, I got to thinking about a few things today and I realized just how inexpensive our vacatioin is.

$112 for site fees (camping, showers, etc)
$75 for food (approximate)
$200 for gas
$0 for clothing as all of our garb is still in good condition
$50 for spending money

Even if you factor in the $1,200 that we spent to make the vardo, we would still be under the typical $1,500 vacation amount.

And while on vacation, we will be making some moeny as well. Hubby is selling a piece of armour that he made and I am babysitting a few nights. We also have the option of working for a vendor helping him set up/tear down. This will give us plenty of spending money and fuel.

I guess if you think about it, our vacation is a lot less expensive than many of them. I really appreciate a vacation from mundane life. Only 3 more days!

Blogsvertise with me!

Blogsvertise is a site promited by Frugal Momma. She has a friend who made money from this and I hope to be able to also. Apparently you make money by talking about people's products in your blog. I know that this is something I can do!

My blog is pending approval. Once approved, I hope to get an assigment soon.

Check it out - Blogsvertise!

Ways to Save

My life feels full of bills lately. I really don’t like that feeling at all. However, I’m not going to make things worse by dwelling upon them. I will instead focus on something positive that I am doing.

This weekend was a busy one. On Saturday, I helped my neighbor with her yard sale which was held a t another family member’s home. . I did not make any money myself but I did get a few things for free from the sale. Funny thing was the best stuff we got came out of the family member’s trash can. He threw out stuff that was GOOD! We got a tent and several cans of bug repellant and first aid spray. We also took a lot of toys out of there that we sold at the yard sale.

On Sunday I spent the day cooking for our upcoming trip. We are going on a weeklong SCA event. A lot of the people there will either purchase meals at high prices in the merchant area. Others will join a food plan and pay $35 per person or so for their weeks worth of meals. Another popular idea is to join a food plan where you cook for a group one night and other people cook on the other nights. We have found that none of these options are right for us. Eating at the “food court” area means spending $10 or more per meal. Spending $70 to join a food plan where the food is not always served on time or even served at all isn’t good for us either. We tried option #3 a few years back and then had to join another food plan that week because people were not cooking their assigned meals. Of course, we could just cook there on site but cleaning up and prep work would take up a large portion of our time.

A few years ago, we hit upon a plan that works for us. We cook our dinners in advance and use our sealer to vacuum seal the meals into 2 portion sized meals. This allows us to have a good variety of meals made at home with cheap ingredients. We are able to stock pile up our meats through the preceding months so we don’t have a large expense right before our vacation. We put these meals into the freezer until the night before we leave. Then they are put into a cooler with dry ice. They stay frozen all week long. At dinner time, we simply pull out our chosen meal and toss it into a pot of boiling water. If it is cold and rainy, we still have a nice hot dinner.

Yesterday, my husband pulled all of the meat we will be using out of our deep freezer. I cooked up ground beef/ground turkey for spaghetti sauce, beef stroganoff, and chili. I grilled chicken breasts on the George Forman grill. I made a large crockpot of beef stew and a huge pot of potato soup.

By cooking this way, I am able to feed my family and any stragglers who need a good hot meal. We are not eating fancy meals but they are wholesome and good.

We bring lunch items like sandwich spreads and peanut butter with us. The only hot meal cooked on site is breakfast. Hubby makes French toast and pancakes a few mornings. Other than that, I eat pop tarts or oatmeal. This is one time of year when I allow myself to buy pop tarts so I really enjoy them.

Our total food bill for the week for approximately 4 adults per meal is about $75.

Feeling Not So Frugal

I don’t feel that our frugal lifestyle is going ALL that great. No, we are not spending excess money on frivolous things. Nor are we buying tons of things for the vardo. We are actually doing a lot of reusing of items that were headed for the trash. However, regardless of how much we have saved on the project, we have still spent quite a bit.

I have to look at the big picture and know that while we’ve got about $1000 invested in the vardo, it really is worth nearly 35 times that since they run about $35 to $40,000! I need to remember that this investment will last us a good many years and could easily be sold if need be.

With all of these positives, why do I feel so crappy?

It scares me to have very little extra cash. We had to pay our house taxes today and that was $1,100. I took it out of savings and that leaves $0 available for emergencies. We have $550 in there but we are changed if it gets below $500. Therefore, I consider $500 as a -0- balance.

Our checking account looks equally as dismal. The only thing making our vacation possible is the $250 piece of armour that my husband will be selling when we get there (he already has a buyer) and the $175 I will receive from my “job” at war.

Once we get back home, we can tighten up our “thrift belts” and start saving again. Spring is coming up and that means that Hubbyman will be able to get side jobs quite easily. That money will go to pay off credit cards and build up our meager savings account.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful that we have what we have. It makes me feel good to know that we are more fortunate than many people out there.

Home Made Bread

I discovered the joy of home made bread this weekend. Our first loaf was a failure. I think we used the wrong kind of flour (self rising) and too much salt. The second loaf, made on Saturday, was a lovely loaf of hearty potato bread. We had company that night and even though dinner was over, they all pigged out on my bread. The WHOLE loaf was gone!

I have to admit that I’m using a bread machine. Before you ask, NO, I did not buy it. I received it from a neighbor. I would try making it myself but with fibro pain, it is impossible for me to properly knead the dough.

Anyway, if you have a tried and true bread recipe, feel free to share!

Just who do you think you are?

I was writing an introductory post for a community that I belong to and I realized that I've never really told much about myself here. Therefore, I thought I would copy most of that post over here.

My name is Kali and I hail from a small town just outside of Memphis, TN. I work full time in a corporate office and feel very fortunate to leave the corporate mindset behind at 4:00 each day.

My husband and I have been together for nearly 10 years. We have a house full of furkids and love every minute of it. I’ve been on the frugal path for the majority of my adult life. I love to find ways to save even more money. I love making budgets and figuring out the cost per use on items (face it, I’m weird)! Our current goal is to pay off the $6,000 worth of credit card debt and pay off our house in less than 15 years (we have a 20 year mortgage). Ultimately we would like to build a hay bale house on 3 to 4 acres in the country where we can have horses and goats.

This year we chose to join “The Compact” but have done so with our own set of rules. We're simplifying our lives one day at a time. My personal goal is lighten the footprint left on our Mother Earth by my family. We make many of our holiday gifts and skip the silly holiday celebrations. A tour of my house would show you that we have a nicely furnished home with a lot of very cool looking things, however, you won’t find much in the way of new items because we live for thrift stores.

I currently run a thrifty community on Live Journal (LWYM) (it isn't very active) and I have this frugal blog and a simple living blog as well. When not online, I can be found working on my arts and crafts. Currently my obsession is artist trading cards (which I make using card stock that I get for free from my aunt’s work).

I hope that you will enjoy reading my blogs.

Namaste,
Kali

January Freebies

Lately my posts in my Simple Living Blog have taken over my time. I find it ironic that both of my blogs could technically be intertwined. I did want to write about a few of the freebies that Hubby and I have gotten this month as I feel we are very fortunate.

1. Food at work – It seems like almost one day per week this month I have gotten free food from work. Anything from the free donut to a gourmet roast beef sandwich on home made bread. I’m grateful for all of these snacks as they allow me to save my lunch for another day.

2. Off of a Curb Alert on our local freecycle group, I was able to get a cd player/record player in mint condition. It is in a vintage style cabinet. My mom was thrilled. I also got 5 NWT tank tops, 2 ET books for my mom’s friend, and an over flowing bag of new Beauty Control Products. My neighbor got a ton of stuff at this house as well.

3. We found a dresser on the side of the road. It is a dark, old world style that will fit wonderfully in our vardo. It is also solid wood and much nicer that we could have afforded to purchase at this time.

4. Hubby was given permission to get an old door from his work for our vardo. By not purchasing a new door, we saved $80.

5. Hubby found a set of Mickey Mouse curtain hooks at work.

6. I received $30 in cash from a survey.

7. I got 3 pairs of leggings to wear under my garb at events for $1.50. This is well below retail cost for one pair! At the same sale, I got a brand new tshirt for hubby for 50 cents.

8. This last one happened in December but I’m really reaping the benefits from it now. I was given a lot of books off of a FSOT site locally. I have been reading books from that group of books. When I finish with them, I will trade them for more books to my liking. It is helping me to achieve my goal of 55 books this year while not buying books. **The library in my town is not very up to date.**

Tell me about YOUR January freebies!!!

Sigh

This blog was supposed to stay active and was supposed to be a place where I kept up with thrifty tips, tricks, and more. However, this year has gotten away from me. We've had a rough patch around here for the past few months. I promise that 2007 will be full of great stuff here. Thanks for sticking around!

Frugalness

My frugal side seems to be dormant these days. I really want to make a worthwhile post but lately it seems like there is too much going on in my life. Hopefully soon I will be able to post thrifty things once again.

Recipes

My goal for this week is to come up with a relatively low cost Indian dish that I can make on Saturday. I’m craving Indian food for some reason and I really want to try my hand at cooking some. If you have any links or recipes, please feel free to share them here.

Has it really been a month?

I suppose I’ve abandoned my blog for the past few weeks. I’ve been busy with the typical and not so typical summer things. I’ve become, by some sort of fate, the wedding planner for a V-E-R-Y low budget event that will be held on Saturday. It will turn out okay if the bride-to-be does not stress out too much.

On a thrifty note, I thought I would share with you something that I did recently that was NOT thrifty. In today’s world, with gas prices skyrocketing over $3 per gallon, driving has to be limited. On Tuesday, while driving home (we live out of the city), I stopped at Kinko’s for work. This meant that I took a different route home, one that I’m not as familiar with. This drive is down a major interstate heading out of the city. I found out that the exits are pretty scarce once the city is behind you.

A older person driving a very new RV decided to cut me off. I had to swerve to keep from hitting him and in doing so, I missed my exit. The next exit was 11.5 miles away. I had to drive 23 miles round trip just to get back to my starting point. Believe me, in the future I will be paying more attention to the highway.

In other news, I’m trying to lose a few pounds. Who am I kidding, I’m trying to lose quite a few pounds! In an effort to tone up, I’ve been walking. That is, when it is not 110 degrees outside! Hopefully soon I will be able to find some ways to exercise at home where I have glorious air conditioning!!

Yard Sale Finds

On Saturday, Hubby & I went yard-saling for free. That’s right; the money we spent was not a part of our budget. It was a glorious thing.

You see, Friday evening, a friend called and needed his air conditioning fixed. Hubby went out at 11:30 p.m. and fixed the problem. He charged $65 for going out and $5 for the part. Not a bad deal considering the friend’s landlord (aka in-laws) will be paying the bill for him. That money became our yard sale cash.

At sale #1, Hubby found some nice fabric. I found a picture frame. For $20, we got tons of fabric and my frame. Hubby sold one roll of the fabric for $20 to a friend.

We ended up getting 2 pairs of Old Navy & 1 pair of Tommy jeans for me ($3 total), a pair of shorts & 2 pairs of pj pants ($1.50), a picture frame, a scarf, and a nice summer weight quilt ($6), 2 books that each contained 4 books ($1), Smart Girls by Judy Blume (50cents), a toaster oven for me to use while baking polymer clay ($2.50), and a few other odds and ends. We felt that we were done. We were heading home. The street just before ours had a sale. We stopped, more to show community comradery than anything else. This sale was where we hit the mother lode!

Hubby found 8 pairs of jeans and 6 pairs of shorts – all name brands (mainly Old Navy and a few Levi). I also found a dress for my sister, a shirt for me, a set of nice heavy weight blue glasses, a board game for my mom, and a Barbie anniversary style clock for mom. Total spent was $10.75! Hubby wears a common size (32x30) so clothes are sometimes hard to find. We were thrilled to be so lucky at this sale. It allowed us to clean out his closet and set up a big lot of his clothing items to sell. These are currently listed on our local Yahoo Yard Sale group. If they don’t sell, I will donate them to Goodwill for the tax credit.

It's Sandal Time!

I’ve been looking for sandals for a long time. I wore out my flea market purchased $3 Birkenstocks (real ones, gently used) in June of last year. They were good shoes and they served me well for over 2 years. I spent all last summer looking and finally resorted to purchasing a pair of cheap black sandals from Freds for $4.

I have looked online for the Naot sandals that I fell in love with a few years back. Sadly they are over $100 and well beyond my budget. Ebay sellers have Naot sandals but not the style I like. I was determined and kept looking.

At Sam’s I found some for $60 that were made by Birkenstock. They were a tad bit pricey for my tastes and even though Hubby said I could have them, I chose to pass them up.

Last Friday, my parents wanted to check out Khol’s department store. The store is pretty new to our area and none of us had been there. They were having a big sale with many items 50 -80% off. I walked around for a while before finding the one thing I’d come for – the shoe department. I found sandals in a great style which I love for $15.99. I also found some black Birkey style sandals for the same price. For just under $60 ($59.51), I got two pairs of sandals for me and a pair for Hubby. That means that I got 3 pairs of shoes for the price of the 1 pair at Sam’s. I was thrilled!

The Pressure to Cook Frugally

I have finally succumb to temptation and bought a pressure cooker. I was reading on Frugal Veggie Mama’s Blog about pressure cookers and finally took the plunge. Thankfully it wasn’t a deep plunge. I can easily re-coup my losses if we hate the thing and re-sell it.

That’s right, I was lucky enough to find one in great condition, with the instruction manual, circa 1960’s, on our local Yahoo Garage Sale Site. For $5 I got a very sturdy, albeit ugly harvest gold colored pressure cooker. I can’t wait to try it out. Feel free to share pressure cooker recipes. I need all of the help I can get!

Memorial Day Projects

Memorial Day is a day to remember. My husband has used this day for the last few years to remember his father. In doing so, he likes working in the yard, being alone with nature. This year he chose to do some back yard projects. He built a deck and installed a pond.

“How is that frugal?” you may ask. Read on.

Our deck was made in a somewhat unconventional way. Hubby researched it and found that it was much cheaper to purchase fence boards rather than 2 x 4’s to build with. He went further to find the best possible deal on the wood. Our deck was built for about 2/3 of the ‘normal’ cost.

The pond was on sale from $159 to $103 at our local garden store. They did not have another one available so we asked if they would discount the floor model which had not been used, just set up. The manager gave us an additional 20% off, making the cost $82.40, leaving us with a savings of more than 45%!

We got a few pond plants from our neighbor, some 33 cent goldfish, and now our yard is complete. It is beautiful for a fraction of the price.

And yes, we save up for these projects. They improve the value of our home as well as improve our overall happiness.