And to change what I blog about.
Because I am pretty sure that just this month and just on Amazon, I blew through that 17,500. (no, not really, because I am not in fact suicidal).
In truth, it's because we don't have to. And there are some things that we have been talking about that will completely blow that.
Like the wrap around deck and hottub and the three season room and the next trip to Ikea and the home and garden show is coming up in February and I KNOW the hubbin wants him some steamy sauna-y goodness and we'll actually start that planning this year. And the geodesic dome greenhouse. And the natural swimming hole with the carps. And the replacement outbuilding because I don't actually want to fix and move the back barn, I want to get one that has a usable loft, a ramp, room to store more than one spade and a door that closes without herculean effort and opens without a crowbar and last, but not necessarily least, one that doesn't smell like the one we have.
Oh, yeah, and my barely suppressed desire to take a 3lb sledgehammer to the bathroom on a daily basis.
And because I am working a regular day job with office hours.
Yup, that's right, I are employee. Feels kinda weird. Still not sure what to make of it.
That's actually why I have been absent for a while. I forgot how much it messes with ones schedule to have to be away from home from 6:20 to usually 5-ish. No more shopping at noon on a Tuesday. No more weeding the front yard while on the phone. No more hanging a load of laundry before getting on the computer. Those little bits add up. A lot. Kinda like pennies pinched and definitely WAY more than I remembered. But I have so far not put fingers to keyboard at 3am for this gig, or gotten phonecalls at 4am, so I am quite happy with the choice we made (did I just hear faint laughter and someone saying DOOM?).
So I guess the thing is to re-direct. More recipes for getting foods prepped for the week for home cooked meals, more gardening tidbits, more sustainability, more frugal with a purpose, rather than to budget (yes, there's a difference, think up front cost and amortizations), because I will continue to pinch pennies 'til Lincolns little eyes pop out, and we'll see, maybe even some thoughts on maximizing saving for retirement (unless we win the lottery, then I'll start talking about his and hers yachts and tax havens) and sewing projects and such.
I guess what I am saying is that we've cocooned for a bit, made some changes, thought some thoughts (and set off the fire alarm), and I think I might be back. It's a journey, here's to the next leg :)
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Friday, August 22, 2014
I'm not dead yet... and an honesty check about finances.
Alright, my header reads that we live on $17,500 a year and I'm not changing that right now (yet?), because, well, that's how this started and how we could still be doing it.
Here's the rub, though: Hubbin wrecked his truck this last winter, and we bought a new, more fuel efficient car, which came with a car payment that bumped our annual budget up to $21,500.
Oddly enough, there was a negative change in our insurance cost ($5 less a month, WHAT?). The data geek in me now wants to know the algorithms that go into that calculation, when a 10 y/o full size truck with minimal insurance costs more than a new, full coverage insured tiny little bump in the road.
So obviously, it's not fuel efficient enough to offset the loan we took out for it, and trust me when I tell you that that was totally part of the 2 month long discussion here at Pinch Manor. It gets somewhere above 35 mpg on average, though, so I'll put that out there for our little zippy thing. It will be cheaper over the long haul than a used truck (other option we discussed) would have been, so we did still make the frugal choice. Because you know what else comes in blue and is a much sexier car, albeit without the cargo space? Convertible Mustangs:
Deep, longing SIGH.
I am a little ashamed to admit that the deciding factor as to whether we would just use the insurance payout (uninsured driver rider, thank you ever so much, if you don't have that insurance rider, do it, do it now!) and buy another used vehicle, or if we would use it as a down payment and get something new, was the colour of the car we got.
It came in my blue. I am a bad person and a shameless spendthrift. Did I mention it's a pretty, pretty blue that matches a lot of my wardrobe? A girl's gotta colour coordinate, don'tch know?
That's one of the reasons why we live frugally, so we can look at each other, ask that question, walk into a dealership and fix that problem we are having.
Here's the rub, though: Hubbin wrecked his truck this last winter, and we bought a new, more fuel efficient car, which came with a car payment that bumped our annual budget up to $21,500.
Oddly enough, there was a negative change in our insurance cost ($5 less a month, WHAT?). The data geek in me now wants to know the algorithms that go into that calculation, when a 10 y/o full size truck with minimal insurance costs more than a new, full coverage insured tiny little bump in the road.
So obviously, it's not fuel efficient enough to offset the loan we took out for it, and trust me when I tell you that that was totally part of the 2 month long discussion here at Pinch Manor. It gets somewhere above 35 mpg on average, though, so I'll put that out there for our little zippy thing. It will be cheaper over the long haul than a used truck (other option we discussed) would have been, so we did still make the frugal choice. Because you know what else comes in blue and is a much sexier car, albeit without the cargo space? Convertible Mustangs:
 |
| Shamelessly stolen from this page: http://mustangsdaily.com/blog/2012/01/21/photo-gallery-2013-ford-mustang-convertible-in-deep-impact-blue/ |
Deep, longing SIGH.
I am a little ashamed to admit that the deciding factor as to whether we would just use the insurance payout (uninsured driver rider, thank you ever so much, if you don't have that insurance rider, do it, do it now!) and buy another used vehicle, or if we would use it as a down payment and get something new, was the colour of the car we got.
It came in my blue. I am a bad person and a shameless spendthrift. Did I mention it's a pretty, pretty blue that matches a lot of my wardrobe? A girl's gotta colour coordinate, don'tch know?
 |
| Our two vehicles, minutes after we signed on the dotted line. Wonder what they are talking about? |
The thing we can't decide is, did the van have a baby or is it dating a midget?
(If you are thinking about flaming me about that one, I'm talking about an inanimate object, not a person, grow a sense of humour, or buy one, I hear they are on sale this month at most local retailers)
So there it is, we broke budget because we took out a car loan. I'm not changing the header, because this is the only change to the budget and frankly, we could have done without it if we had to; or kept the payments significantly lower by putting a larger down payment up or changing the terms of the loan around a bit. Purely a luxury item that ended an argument. If we hadn't had the room in the budget, from pinching and saving and generally living below our means, this picture would have been of a used vehicle, bought from a private seller for under $3,500, which was the budget we had agreed on for a used car.
Did I mention it's MY blue? Which is weird, because it's the car the hubbin drives most of the time :D
But seriously, I totally admit that I saw this car in a parking lot, went and got the hubbin and asked him why I don't have one of those. Yeah, I'm that kind of high maintenance.
That's one of the reasons why we live frugally, so we can look at each other, ask that question, walk into a dealership and fix that problem we are having.
And because we could both work minimum wage jobs and be fine. Which is how this whole thing sort of started, with someone telling me how it's not possible to live on the current minimum wage of $7.50 an hour (two almost full time (38 hrs) incomes, after taxes: $23,700, so that's what we had to stay below to prove it can be done, that, and groceries for no more than $1/meal, because that's less than food stamps would be for us). Best way to get me to do something: Tell me it can't be done.
There is another blog post brewing somewhere in my brain about closing that challenge (because I have proved the point to MY satisfaction and that's really all that counts at this point) and just focusing more on sustainability and crunchyness (did I just type that?), without going too granola (YUCK) and shifting the frugal aspect more toward the economics of what is my time worth. It's a journey and there is a change of direction brewing. It's all good :D
K, that's all I got for now, back under my rock for a while, because the garden is coming in nicely, and I am doing a lot of Lacto fermentation.
Happy Pinching :D
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Blogging, Life and Gardening. Also, Priorities!
Alrighty then, it's been a while.
I'm baaaaaack. Maybe.
This post brought to you by my (very) occasional contributions to Lehmans, here's the link.
I'll put my original further down, because this post is actually about my realization how freaking awesome my editor is.
When I submit something, I send it as a draft, with the understanding and expectation that things will be changed. And by that I mean the kind of change between the Lord of the Rings book and the movies. That's what I'm expecting when I send stuff over.
What I get is something much, much better.
When I see my contributions on the Lehman's Blog, I have caught myself thinking 'hey, that person sounds sort of like me, only better and funnier and she's writing about this thing I have done and that looks almost like my picture...pause...read a bit further, check the tag line...hey, that's my article. AWESOME'.
That's what a good editor does. They take the original voice and they amplify it and make it clearer, without distorting it. I have that editor. And she rocks :D
Here's what I originally wrote for the article linked above, make your own decisions:
And don’t even get me started on the sunflowers just poking their little leaves out, because those are the support system for the cucumbers, so those JUST got seeded out. Slackers all around me. I NEED cucumbers and cherry tomatoes, fresh from the vine, for my continued happiness. Does Nature not understand my needs here? And no, buying them is not the same, I have been forever ruined for hothouse produce. Starting to get scurvy here and rapidly going through my last little stores of pickles from last year, this is completely unacceptable. Where do I lodge a complaint? Just kidding, this is actually what makes gardening fun, having to adjust and go with how things run, not really having control. And there is a core deep happiness and sense of thankfulness and accomplishment when I pull one of the canned jars from last year or the year before off the shelf. That is something that no one could ever have explained to me, that sense of ‘YEAH, we did this, despite torrential rains, despite season-long droughts, despite insect invasions that had me picking bugs for days. Nothing quite like it :D
Potatoes, lettuce, peas, carrots and radishes, cucumbers vining their way up an ornamental trellis: PRETTY. Delicious. Win-win.
I'm baaaaaack. Maybe.
This post brought to you by my (very) occasional contributions to Lehmans, here's the link.
I'll put my original further down, because this post is actually about my realization how freaking awesome my editor is.
When I submit something, I send it as a draft, with the understanding and expectation that things will be changed. And by that I mean the kind of change between the Lord of the Rings book and the movies. That's what I'm expecting when I send stuff over.
What I get is something much, much better.
When I see my contributions on the Lehman's Blog, I have caught myself thinking 'hey, that person sounds sort of like me, only better and funnier and she's writing about this thing I have done and that looks almost like my picture...pause...read a bit further, check the tag line...hey, that's my article. AWESOME'.
That's what a good editor does. They take the original voice and they amplify it and make it clearer, without distorting it. I have that editor. And she rocks :D
Here's what I originally wrote for the article linked above, make your own decisions:
May 19, 2014
For us this year so
far has served as a reminder that we are not in charge of our garden and how
things will work out.
Despite months of
planning, re-arranging, re-planning and, let’s call it, dreaming about the
perfection that will be this years garden, we are now officially 3 weeks
behind, we have harvested a grand total of three (you read that right, 3)
radishes, and they were minuscule, because everything is either languishing or
bolting to seed before setting full roots.
 |
| Bolting Radishes |
The peppers and
tomatoes went in on May 19, 2014, the latest I have ever planted anything, and
it’s because I didn't want the poor little plantiwuzels (totally a word) to
freeze in the ground, but I had to get them in, because they were starting to
not like being in pods.
And don’t even get me started on the sunflowers just poking their little leaves out, because those are the support system for the cucumbers, so those JUST got seeded out. Slackers all around me. I NEED cucumbers and cherry tomatoes, fresh from the vine, for my continued happiness. Does Nature not understand my needs here? And no, buying them is not the same, I have been forever ruined for hothouse produce. Starting to get scurvy here and rapidly going through my last little stores of pickles from last year, this is completely unacceptable. Where do I lodge a complaint? Just kidding, this is actually what makes gardening fun, having to adjust and go with how things run, not really having control. And there is a core deep happiness and sense of thankfulness and accomplishment when I pull one of the canned jars from last year or the year before off the shelf. That is something that no one could ever have explained to me, that sense of ‘YEAH, we did this, despite torrential rains, despite season-long droughts, despite insect invasions that had me picking bugs for days. Nothing quite like it :D
Potatoes, lettuce, peas, carrots and radishes, cucumbers vining their way up an ornamental trellis: PRETTY. Delicious. Win-win.
I do plan my garden to
basically give me a 2 week break in the middle of summer, because we go on
vacation, completely non-negotiable and we are not in charge of when that
happens. Having everything come into fruit just as one leaves for two weeks is
frustrating at best and definitely heartbreaking, so after doing that for a few
years I started checking the days to harvest and planning the garden around
those dates. Apparently I learn by pain association <wink>. And note,
that’s me planning, not how things actually work out, because never fear,
nothing will go as planned :D
With this years spring
showing me whose boss I will definitely have to do some serious juggling and
shifting of plant dates and even some re-arranging of where things will be
planted, because the radishes that were supposed to be gone by now are still in
situ where some of the peppers were planned, so those guys have to move and
that will create a ripple effect in my plan, because they have to go where the
corn was scheduled to go, which will have to be bumped by a few weeks (thank
goodness for long growing seasons), which means the beans will be bumped along
with them. To give a concrete example of one that didn't work out for me: The
buckwheat I put in as early as I could only poked their little baby leave up a
little bit before they all drowned (and were immediately replaced by
dandelions, grump).
The carrots are
clinging to life with a ferociousness I never thought I’d see in a humble
carrot, because they have now been drowned, parched, nearly frozen and munched
on by slugs, the letti (lettuces? Oh, if only I’d paid better attention in
English vocab) is pathetically small, but at least they haven’t drowned (I was
worried there for a few days) and they are being little troopers about not
bolting (see above about the slackweasel radishes), so I am actually really
impressed with those little guys, can’t wait to eat them :D
 |
| Carrots, trust me |
On to further happy
news: Despite being broiled, frozen and drowned ourselves and see-sawing
between fanning ourselves and lighting fires in the fireplace to warm up the
house, the garden is ready. Broadforked and augmented with compost, weeded,
desluggified (it’s a word, trust me), because those little suckers will
actually drink cheap beer (no, I’m not letting them drown in home brew),
sprinkled with crushed eggshells and diatomaceous earth and now it’s all about
the weather forecast. So here’s hoping that it’s accurate and I didn't just
plant almost 200 seedlings, only to have them all die in a late frost. Pray
with me :D
June 15, 2014
Done at last, done at last, goodness gracious, we are done
at last.
With the spring/summer planting.
A whole month behind schedule.
My schedule that is, because as we all know, *I* am not in
charge and there is simply nothing I can do about that and it’s sort of
glorious, isn’t it?
Here’s where we are as of today:
Carrots(Dragon, and I simply can’t wait to see them in all
their red glory :D) going strong and
being all bushy and looking inviting. Make you just want to nibble, don’t they?
Grow, grow, we want to eat you!
 |
| Carrots, told you to trust me |
Little Potato cucumbers, these guys are being sprinkled with
diatomaceous earth regularly, so that nothing nibbles on them when I’m not
looking (as are all the other plants, that’s the little whitish specks you see
in all of my pics)
Three head lettuce, this is one of the last ones around,
because we ate the rest already and only left a few to go ahead and bolt, so we
can seed save them for the fall planting. And they are kind of pretty when they
bloom, so I get double duty out of the deal. Can’t complain about that, now,
can ya?
It is for that reason that I plant a lot of lettuce in the
front of my house, where one would expect to see flower beds. I know that I get
strange looks when I am out there, harvesting lettuce and herbs for dinner with
a big ole colander, but I just can’t bring myself to waste all that space on
things I can’t eat.
Note to self: Don’t plant corn in the front flower beds, it
doesn’t look right.
Lazy Housewife beans, also pretty and can vine their way up
an ornamental trellis. Or, as in this case, be in the garden and be purely
functional. That is something that is on the list, pretty trellises for the
garden, it just hasn’t happened yet. It just so happens that the beans really
don’t care what they climb. I’ve used sunflowers, corn, sticks, a discarded
porch swing frame, the side support of my clothes line, you name it, beans will
climb it. Hooray.
The only limiting factor for me is what I want to have to
look at in my yard all summer, so I strive for pretty. That garden is supposed
to feed more than just our bellies, after all :D
Last, but definitely not least: Black Cherry Tomatoes.
I’m
informed by a reliable source that these are delicious and candylike (me, I am
that source, I had them last year) and will not make it into the house. And
since the hubbin flat out refuses to eat raw tomatoes of any kind, they will be
mine, all mine. And there are 11 plants, so maybe, just maybe I will be able to
dehydrate some or can them for the winter, because these things are sooooo
jummy, and dehydrated they are like
tomato raisins (tomaisins?). I would show you a picture, but there aren’t any,
because I used up all my self-control to put a handful into the dehydrator,
there was none left for taking pics before devouring them.
I have limits. A lot of them. I embrace them and when it
comes to delicious, homegrown foods without preservatives (OK, salt in some
cases), I see no reason to restrain myself.
That’s all I have for now.
Happy Pinching.
P.S.: Tomatoes LOVE used coffee grounds, and eggshells, so
don’t throw those out. And the coffee grounds and eggshells also act as a
deterrent to some pests, so there’s another win-win.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
OK... here goes.
I love writing these posts. I really, really do. It's quite enjoyable to me to write these little blips about stuff I have learned.
What is not enjoyable is doing it and then finding out that people think I have copied from other blogs (if it looks like I have without crediting, that's just too bad, because I have not, that's too, too tacky for words)
So, I may or may not post things here, as I have time and inclination to do so, but the last five or six posts I started and then googled, because paranoid now, have already been done ad nauseam, so I abandoned them.
I feel no need to re-hash material that is already at my fingertips, unless I have something new to add.
In my sideline there are some fantastic blogs about a lot of the things I am doing to stay within budget.
This is not an end to my blogging, it's a change in how I go about it and a re-allocation of my time in accordance with priorities. (Read this as I want to spend more time with people, not computers).
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
What is not enjoyable is doing it and then finding out that people think I have copied from other blogs (if it looks like I have without crediting, that's just too bad, because I have not, that's too, too tacky for words)
So, I may or may not post things here, as I have time and inclination to do so, but the last five or six posts I started and then googled, because paranoid now, have already been done ad nauseam, so I abandoned them.
I feel no need to re-hash material that is already at my fingertips, unless I have something new to add.
In my sideline there are some fantastic blogs about a lot of the things I am doing to stay within budget.
This is not an end to my blogging, it's a change in how I go about it and a re-allocation of my time in accordance with priorities. (Read this as I want to spend more time with people, not computers).
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
Friday, November 15, 2013
I'm sort of joking here. Sort of. A little. OK, maybe not joking, but showing range, YEAH, that's it, I'm showing range ;)
humor-site-deadspin-ranks-preppiest sports
Feeling under-represented here with only 5 mentions, where is Tennis and Womens Water Polo and Pheasant Hunting, not to mention cycling?
Only 5? Bah, Humbug.
I will now return you to your regularly scheduled penny pinching adventures ;)
Feeling under-represented here with only 5 mentions, where is Tennis and Womens Water Polo and Pheasant Hunting, not to mention cycling?
Only 5? Bah, Humbug.
I will now return you to your regularly scheduled penny pinching adventures ;)
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
I'm not dead yet... I feel HAPPY - and thoughts on food storage quantities :) with judicious use of the phrase A. LOT.
It's inspired by this post over at Lehman's:
I've been (and still am to some extend) finishing up the last (HAH!) of the harvest and stock up for Winter putting up chores and have consequently been buried in the kitchen and basement.
One of the things that goes into preserving the harvest/ shopping frugally/ not running to the store every 5 seconds (or every week, which to me seems like every 5 seconds) is planning what you are going to have on hand.
I have tried doing the meal plan thing before and I failed miserably, because no matter how thick the writing on the meal plan saying it's bean casserole night is underlined, what we both really want tonight is pizza. And that's just for the two of us, I can't imagine what that sort of thing is like when there are more people involved in the 'but I'm really in the mood for X' discussion. And let's face it, just because we eat frugally doesn't mean that we want to (or should) feel deprived in any way. Feeling deprived (as opposed to depraved, which is the norm around here) is what leads to bingeing, which leads to feelings of guilt, which leads to austerity, which leads to bingeing and so on and so forth, ad nauseam.
Self-defeating is the word I was looking for there.
One of the pitfalls of starting to eat frugally is that one might be tempted to buy cheaply and in bulk, only to learn that what one (me, alright, it was me) has stocked up on a bunch of stuff noone wants to eat. That's known as 'Not a Bargain for Us'.
Two things: Buying in bulk requires an initial outlay of funds for the larger quantities one buys, so there is usually a 'saving up for it' period involved. Use that time to figure out not only what you actually consume (toilet paper is a relatively safe bet here) and, and this is kind of important, how much of it you consume over a given period of time.
I just accepted a delivery of 100lbs of flour, 50 lbs of whole wheat stone ground and 50 lbs of white all purpose, so I'll just go ahead and use that as an example.
I bake A LOT in the colder months. Think at least four loaves of bread, two loaves of banana nut bread*, at least one batch of cookies (it's the season, don't you know), a batch of garlic cheddar biscuits and pigs in a blanket, usually an apple coffee cake and sometimes a batch of English Muffins or tortillas if I am feeling adventurous. That's every week. Now some of that goes into the freezer for the summer months, when I not only don't want to heat up the house by baking, but also don't have the time to do anything other than deal with the garden, but on average, I go through about 8 lbs of flour a week during baking season.
So those 100lbs are going to last us until Early February or a little more than 3 months.
We may have some kind of carb addiction going on here...
I no longer know what non-bulk, non-bromated flour costs, but I got this stuff for $0.56 per lb including the shipping, which is slightly more than I could spend for bromated flour at GFS in the 50lb bag, but I'll go with the non-pesticide option for as long as the extra ~$0.005 per pound and the shipping can be absorbed into the budget.
Now, if you are not baking all of your own bread and cookies and cakes then buying 100lbs of flour might not be for you. Here's why: That stuff doesn't last forever. Actually, it'll last about 3 months in my constant temp and relatively stable humidity basement or 6 months in the freezer before it goes stale and/or rancid. And would you look at that, that's about as long as it'll take me to use that all up. How fortuitous. It's almost like I planned it that way...
Another good example for us is tomatoes. We use a lot of them. A. LOT.
Before I started growing and preserving my own we went through about four #10 cans of whole peeled tomatoes a month. In order to replace that level of consumption with organic, home grown, non-BPA canned tomatoes I would have to can roughly 200 quarts of tomatoes. That's not happening for several reasons:
*I buy bananas when they go on sale in the summer and prep them for banana nut bread by putting 6 of them in a bag, adding cinnamon and freezing them as flat mush
I've been (and still am to some extend) finishing up the last (HAH!) of the harvest and stock up for Winter putting up chores and have consequently been buried in the kitchen and basement.
 |
| Our simply overwhelming apple harvest. Yup, that's all of it. It's a 3 year old tree, so We're actually quite thrilled. |
One of the things that goes into preserving the harvest/ shopping frugally/ not running to the store every 5 seconds (or every week, which to me seems like every 5 seconds) is planning what you are going to have on hand.
I have tried doing the meal plan thing before and I failed miserably, because no matter how thick the writing on the meal plan saying it's bean casserole night is underlined, what we both really want tonight is pizza. And that's just for the two of us, I can't imagine what that sort of thing is like when there are more people involved in the 'but I'm really in the mood for X' discussion. And let's face it, just because we eat frugally doesn't mean that we want to (or should) feel deprived in any way. Feeling deprived (as opposed to depraved, which is the norm around here) is what leads to bingeing, which leads to feelings of guilt, which leads to austerity, which leads to bingeing and so on and so forth, ad nauseam.
Self-defeating is the word I was looking for there.
One of the pitfalls of starting to eat frugally is that one might be tempted to buy cheaply and in bulk, only to learn that what one (me, alright, it was me) has stocked up on a bunch of stuff noone wants to eat. That's known as 'Not a Bargain for Us'.
Two things: Buying in bulk requires an initial outlay of funds for the larger quantities one buys, so there is usually a 'saving up for it' period involved. Use that time to figure out not only what you actually consume (toilet paper is a relatively safe bet here) and, and this is kind of important, how much of it you consume over a given period of time.
I just accepted a delivery of 100lbs of flour, 50 lbs of whole wheat stone ground and 50 lbs of white all purpose, so I'll just go ahead and use that as an example.
I bake A LOT in the colder months. Think at least four loaves of bread, two loaves of banana nut bread*, at least one batch of cookies (it's the season, don't you know), a batch of garlic cheddar biscuits and pigs in a blanket, usually an apple coffee cake and sometimes a batch of English Muffins or tortillas if I am feeling adventurous. That's every week. Now some of that goes into the freezer for the summer months, when I not only don't want to heat up the house by baking, but also don't have the time to do anything other than deal with the garden, but on average, I go through about 8 lbs of flour a week during baking season.
So those 100lbs are going to last us until Early February or a little more than 3 months.
We may have some kind of carb addiction going on here...
I no longer know what non-bulk, non-bromated flour costs, but I got this stuff for $0.56 per lb including the shipping, which is slightly more than I could spend for bromated flour at GFS in the 50lb bag, but I'll go with the non-pesticide option for as long as the extra ~$0.005 per pound and the shipping can be absorbed into the budget.
Now, if you are not baking all of your own bread and cookies and cakes then buying 100lbs of flour might not be for you. Here's why: That stuff doesn't last forever. Actually, it'll last about 3 months in my constant temp and relatively stable humidity basement or 6 months in the freezer before it goes stale and/or rancid. And would you look at that, that's about as long as it'll take me to use that all up. How fortuitous. It's almost like I planned it that way...
Another good example for us is tomatoes. We use a lot of them. A. LOT.
Before I started growing and preserving my own we went through about four #10 cans of whole peeled tomatoes a month. In order to replace that level of consumption with organic, home grown, non-BPA canned tomatoes I would have to can roughly 200 quarts of tomatoes. That's not happening for several reasons:
- I'm lazy (remember this, it's sort of a theme here)
- That's 200 quart jars I have to buy just for the tomatoes, and while I probably will get there eventually, it's not an investment we are able to make up front.
- If I suggested to the hubbin that we need to can 200 quarts of tomatoes he would either have a coronary right then and there or seed the garden plot with grass seed, or both.
- That's a lot of room to dedicate in the pantry. More room than we can allow for it, in fact.
- Canning 200 quart jars would be 29 canner loads for me. I could probably pull it off during tomato season, but see #1 (told you to remember that one) and there are other things to take care of at that point in time.
Dehydrating to the rescue :D
I can some tomatoes, because you just can't beat that taste and texture for some things.
I throw some of them into the freezer, because it's easy and we have a lot of them.
I dehydrate A. LOT. of them. Because when I make a sauce, stew or soup, having some dehydrated tomatoes to throw in there is wonderful. And a pint of dehydrated tomatoes is about equivalent to two #10 cans :) Look at all that room I am not using for tomatoes :D
I didn't one day decide that I would need 50 quarts of canned tomatoes and 100lbs of flour every three months, it took some watching what we actually eat, some math, some looking at grocery receipts and figuring out when we use what. And it took me a few years to figure out that that 50lb bag of flour I bought in December went a lot faster than the one I bought in August. It's a journey, and you have to pay attention to things you may not usually even think about.
Beans are a prime example of this for us. I used to not cook with beans that much, because I bought them dry and they are sort of a pain to deal with that way, but SOOOO much cheaper. Then I heard about a trick where you soak a whole bunch and then freeze them in portion sizes, so you just have to defrost them to have pre-soaked beans ready to go. Only that's a pain in the rear, too, because thawing that lump-o-frozen-beans takes forever without application of some heat, and you may recall that I am what is colloquially known as way too cheap to do that.
Then I started canning them without pre-soaking them (here) and suddenly we are eating more beans than you can shake a stick at. And I started running out of beans, so I started buying them whenever I saw them for my stock-up price (under $1.00/lb) anywhere...We have a lot of beans right now. Dried, and canned.
A. LOT.
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| There's actually more in the basement and I took this pic after I canned a bunch. I may have a problem. |
It's OK, because they are not going to go bad before we use them up. But I will have to figure out how much we actually consume, so that I can then adjust my purchases to meet our actual demand without having a years worth of beans sitting around. Because having a few hundred bucks tied up in food that might go bad before we eat it is not frugal or smart. And it sort of ticks me off when I do it.
Quick aside: Rotate your food and your tires. In shuffling a bunch of jars in the basement I found some dried bell peppers from 2010. They are still good (Thank YOU) and are now actually ground into a fine powder and in the spice cabinet for use as paprika (YUMM). I just hate finding stuff like that because it means I didn't do due diligence. First in, first out and stock from the back, B. you know this :)
You know how when you were in school and you asked when you would ever need all this math stuff? My mall rat, colour guard, designer clothes wearing, snobby self would have laughed if someone had used this as an example.
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
*I buy bananas when they go on sale in the summer and prep them for banana nut bread by putting 6 of them in a bag, adding cinnamon and freezing them as flat mush
Monday, October 21, 2013
Last of the summer harvest (frost advisory for tonight)
Clockwise and spiralwise (is that a word?), starting with the pile of three, upper left:
Green, ripening to a deep oxblood red sweet pepper, that has such a rich, flavour that it's simply indescribable. I keep opening the dehydrator and popping some chunks into my mouth. There's a reason you are not seeing a pile of them, I had to beat the hubbin off with a stick to be able to let them get ripe enough to seed save them. They are called Sweet Chocolate and it's kind of true.
Next up Ancho Pablomas, these babies are HOT HOT HOT and have a smoky flavour without having seen a smoker, which is a good thing, because I don't have one :( ...yet.
Black Hungarians, medium hot, with a sweet lead in that slowly builds up to a nice, warm crescendo with practically no burn. Probably my favourite hot pepper and not just because they are black, ripening to a deep, rich red :) on nice, compact plants and look lovely.
Black Hungarians, last years open pollination, it worked :).
Sweet little pepperlings, don't know what they are called, but they are really, really sweet, the candy of peppers, and simply adorable on the plant. Upright habit, and you can't really see it here, they go from a creamy white to purple to orange to deep red and are probably the most ornamental peppers I've ever planted.
I call the next set jalapeno looking sweet peppers, they are very flavourful, sweet and mild with no heat at all, very nice, they are from seeds I saved from a pack of sweet peppers from Sams Club if you would believe it. Experiment: successful, so far, let's see what happens next year :D
Then we have White Bullnose, they ripen from a creamy white through purple streaks to a deep red and the flavour changes from buttery to this very rich paprika flavour I've never experienced in a fresh pepper.
Purple peppers that are white on the inside, want to say they are purple beauty, but could be wrong, open pollination from last year, seed from one lone survivor of the drought, and the taste is completely worth the effort of nursing that one through :)
Basic green pepper, except these are a heirloom variety (Emerald Giant, didn't quite make it to red) as well, and I can tell the difference. The pepper flavour is complex, there is a sweetness to these that I have never tasted in a commercial pepper and they are more fragrant than anything I could buy at the store.
Then black jalapenos, they pack a punch and again, the complex flavour is worth dealing with the heirloom for this one, it was a new one for us this year and we'll be planting it again along with all of the varieties you see here. I will be trying a few other ones next year, just to add a bit more variety to the pepper game, but ultimately I want there to be 10 to 12 varieties.
I'm saving the seeds out of all of these, and for peppers that's easy to do: cut open the pepper, take out the seeds and dry them until a seed breaks when bent, then store them away, I keep my hoard in jars in the freezer :D. Make sure you lable your seeds well throughout the entire process, or you might wind up like me, calling your seed packs 'pretty little pepperlings' ;)
We've gone from this
Happy Pinching
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Quickie update, gratuitous dinner pic and an announcement
First things first: I have reactivated my Etsy store, as of this writing I have a grand total of three items listed (impressive, no?), the link is here, in case you want to check out my handiwork. I'm still working on the picture taking thing, so I'm not real happy with that. Moving on.
That's what I have been working on, mostly.
I also boiled some potatoes, let them cool enough to peel them (this counts as a break around here because I do it while watching TV), then shredded them, mixed in some seasonings (chili powder and powdered onion, FANCY!) and some cheese sauce (about a cup of milk to three cups of shredded cheese, heated until pour-able), cut up some hot dogs (don't judge) and threw that concoction into the oven at 350 for a half hour.
There was a third pan...
I think that the whole shebang is giving us 24 portions for less than $10 ($3 for the potatoes, $1 for the hotdogs and $4 for the cheese, give or take a few), and it's my favourite kind of dish, the one dish meal :D
Here's what happened in my kitchen yesterday: Potatoes were cut up, blanched and then set to dehydrate for fries later, I'll finish that post when they come out of the dehydrator.
And I made this:
The other non-homesteading thing I have been working on is my facebook page for this blog (is that circular reasoning?) and the Etsy store, It only took me 5 months to hit that button, so no procrastination here...
https://www.facebook.com/PinchingLincoln
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
That's what I have been working on, mostly.
I also boiled some potatoes, let them cool enough to peel them (this counts as a break around here because I do it while watching TV), then shredded them, mixed in some seasonings (chili powder and powdered onion, FANCY!) and some cheese sauce (about a cup of milk to three cups of shredded cheese, heated until pour-able), cut up some hot dogs (don't judge) and threw that concoction into the oven at 350 for a half hour.
I think that the whole shebang is giving us 24 portions for less than $10 ($3 for the potatoes, $1 for the hotdogs and $4 for the cheese, give or take a few), and it's my favourite kind of dish, the one dish meal :D
Here's what happened in my kitchen yesterday: Potatoes were cut up, blanched and then set to dehydrate for fries later, I'll finish that post when they come out of the dehydrator.
And I made this:
That's 6 lbs of ground beef, two quarts of beans, homecanned of course, about a half gallon of cut up onions, a bit of home baked bread turned breadcrumbs, and about 18 eggs. With the application of 350 degrees and about 30 minutes we are left with this, much more appetizing looking result:
There's actually 4 more pans of this. 72 servings. I'll take it for under $20 and about 2 hours of actual work, if I consider the cutting of the onions and the mixing of the meat and other ingredients. Pack that up with a side of salad of some sort and both the hubbin and I are quite happy for lunch. That reminds me, time to put the last lettuce seeds in the ground. Never done. ;)
The other non-homesteading thing I have been working on is my facebook page for this blog (is that circular reasoning?) and the Etsy store, It only took me 5 months to hit that button, so no procrastination here...
https://www.facebook.com/PinchingLincoln
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Braindump post that is only marginally related to homesteading
I love to be creative.
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I sew, I experiment with how I cook (no, really?), I make things from scratch, I try to build things out of what I have on hand, rather than buy something (I always feel like I am taking the easy way out when I do that), I sometimes work with training my cats to do stupid cat tricks, in short, my inner science geek comes out to play and I do physics and math and psychology and physiology and geometry in my kitchen and sewing room and the back yard. And that's before I start to pull the ceiling panels out of the RV (ask me about how much I love the rain we've been having) and try to figure out what kind of engine is in that beast so I can fiddle with it and keep it running.
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But I digress.
I have been incredibly slackful about something that I really want to do for a while now. And every time I gear up for it something shiny comes along and I let it fall by the wayside and skip off into the newest and most improved sunset.
That thing is my etsy store. I have one. I have listed items in the past, I have made sales there. I have stuff ready to go. So why isn't it up and being maintained? Because I get sidetracked like a fruitfly with ADHD, that's why. Well, no more.
I will have inventory listed and items in the works by October 18, 2013. That is my pledge to myself.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Pressure canning dry beans - My no-soak, no-pre-cook method
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| This is what a lot of my recipes look like. Thorough, no? |
OK, it's that time of year, where I still refuse to turn on the furnace, still have the windows open all day and night and the thermostat reads in the low 60s for most of the day. I've taken out the sweaters and there's two comforters on the bed.
CHILI WEATHER.
Only problem is, I went down to the basement and lo, there were no more canned beans. Only dry. A lot of dry. I hate cooking with dry beans, it takes forever and it's really rather tedious.
So while I was down there I grabbed a few jars of dry beans (I don't leave them in the bag they come in) and the pressure canner. OK, it actually took three trips, it's how I get my exercise.
WARNING: This is not the USDA recommended method, it is how *I* can dry beans. I find it to be easy, simple and effective. I can see no way in which it would be bad or not work if you follow these instructions, it produces what is to me a firmer and better end product than the recommended version of soak, cook, then can, which makes for (again, to me) soggy, mushy beans. If you do not feel comfortable canning beans this way or if you prefer your beans softer than this, please refer to the USDA guidelines, even with soaking, cooking and then canning beans you will save money and time and have a product that is healthier than commercial canned goods with additives you don't want or BPA in the can.
Here's the procedure:
Assemble: Beans (any kind of dry beans will work, in this instance I am using navy beans and chick peas), clean jars and lids and rings, pressure canner (you must not water bath can this, beans are a low acid food and will not be safe to eat if water bath canned), water, seasonings if you are so inclined, lid lifter, jar lifter, a few towels and a clean cloth.
Check your canner for functionality (nothing lodged in the vents, seal is supple, it's clean), this is different for every canner, so please follow manufacturers recommendations.
Put your jars into the dishwasher and run the drying cycle (I have mentioned that I am lazy, right?) or, if you don't have a dishwasher, put them into a sink of hot water. This is just to warm up your already clean jars.
Set your lids in a pot of water on the stove to simmer.
Sort and rinse beans (however many you are going to can,). I measure them before I rinse them and then again as I put them in the jars. Use a bit of vinegar in the rinse water if you are so inclined, I do to make sure they are clean.
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| BEANS! |
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| sorting and rinsing the pre-measured beans |
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| My canner takes 7 quart jars |
Put about 3 inches of room temperature water into your pressure canner and set the bottom into it. Do not turn on the heat yet.
Fill each jar with either a half cup (for pints) or just slightly less than a cup (for quarts, seriously, like 3 beans less than a full cup) of rinsed beans. Add your seasonings (salt, onions, garlic, pepper, chili powder, up to you, I add a bit of salt, usually)
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| One tsp of salt per quart is all I add |
Top off with room temperature water (I use filtered for this, because it will be what we eat) until there is an inch of headspace left.
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| Needs a bit more water (actually, the bottom of the ridge on the jar is an inch, but to make sure it's right I measure with the blue thingy that has a name I cannot recall right now) |
Dip your clean cloth into the water you are simmering the lids in (careful, this is really hot) and wipe the rims of the jars clean with it.
It's a lid...uhm...magnet
Using your lid lifter, set your lids on the jars and finger tighten the rings. Finger tight means nicely tight, but not so tight that you are straining.
Place the jars in your pressure canner.
Once the canner is filled to capacity, close the lid and turn on the heat.
When you have vented steam for a solid ten minutes, put the weight on the vent and let the pressure build up.
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| This might be the best $10 I ever spent. It's an adjustable weight 5, 10 and 15lbs |
When the pressure reads 10lbs*, start the timer (75 min for pints, 90 min for quarts) and then keep the pressure at that level.
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| With the 10lb weight rocking and the pressure gauge reading at a solid 10lbs it's time to start the timer. 90 minutes for the quarts I'm doing |
Any adjustments you make to the temperature must be gradual, large drops in pressure will affect your product, you may lose moisture and the jars might not seal or even break.
When your timer goes off, turn off the heat and let the pressure normalize on its own. While that is going on,
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| Notice how the pop up button on the right is down, the pressure is down and the black safety valve is flat, that's what you wait for before taking the weight off and opening the canner. And be careful of the hot steam that is still in there. |
Arrange a towel on your counter away from drafts, so that you can
set your jars on the towel when you lift them out of the canner to cool for about 24 hours.
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| The rings only look like they are on there sideways :) Also, I underfilled the jars a bit, not a big deal. |
Wait for the ping.
In case you are wondering, YES, I'm a dork.
After a few hours you can check if the jars have sealed, tapping on the top is my preferred method, a sealed jar will sound a nice, high note, an unsealed jar will sound dull. Final test is trying to lift the jar by the lid if it sounded dull. And I tend to err on the side of caution and put the ones I am not sure about in the fridge for immediate consumption or the freezer for later (another reason to use wide mouth jars, they can be frozen).
Quick before they all seal:
Sound test of a different kind
Take the rings off for storage! Always take the ring off for storage of canned goods.
Crud accumulated under the ring can cause mold and rusting and if the ring is on and the jar didn't seal right it can hold the lid in place while the contents ferment and then re-seal, and that's the kind of thing that can (will and has) kill people. Don't eat canned goods that have the rings still on. Not worth it.
Voila, canned beans. With ingredients you can pronounce. And really quite easy to do.
Quick bit of math:
One pound of beans runs anywhere between $0.89 and $2.49 around here, I don't buy them at more than about a dollar on principle, but in the interest of fairness, let's say one pound costs $1.50.
That pound will fill 3 quart jars (plus a half pint), so that's less than $0.50 in beans
Throw in the $0.06 for the two gallons of water I will use to process and fill the jars and the $0.11 for the stove usage and we have a total of $1.67 for three quart jars of beans for a whopping $0.56 for a large can of beans. If you can beat that price, do it. Stock up. Bring me some.
Realistically, because I buy beans for less than a dollar a pound I don't spend more than $0.31 per quart jar or $0.15 per pint of home canned beans. It's completely worth it for us, especially if I consider that I mostly can in the colder months, so there is a marginal gain in frugality because I am heating up the house while doing it. More math than I care to do, but the thought sure makes me feel all virtuous ;) <snicker>
One last thought: This method lets me throw in a quart or a pint of beans at the last minute when I am processing something else and have room in the canner. That doesn't lower the price of the beans any, but it does mean I am not running a partial load, so to speak. An hour and a half of the gas stove running costs me about $0.11 whether there is something in the pot or not.
That's all I got for now.
Happy Pinching
*At sea level, if you live at a higher elevation, please adjust your pressure accordingly
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Conserving Water for fun and profit
This is a more in depth follow up to this post.
I mentioned that we spent about $100 on a low flow toilet and shower head.
The toilet was because the original one installed in our house was a custom made item, that after over 50 years of absolutely no maintenance whatsoever gave up the ghost and leaked. From everywhere. And getting custom seals to fix the pink abomination* would have been more expensive than buying the basic model at local home improvement warehouse for all of $80 plus taxes and installing it, which we did ourselves and it was EASY.
The new toilet is a low flow model that uses 1.4 gallons per flush. Our old model used 9 gallons per flush. We pay $0.02969 (that's 3 cent) per gallon of water, so that's a total savings of $0.225644 or 22cent per flush.
The new toilet saves us more than a dollar a day in water.
We are actually really upset that we didn't change it out years ago. (staves off descend into the shouldacouldawouldas by focusing on the fact that we have now done it and it's over)
The low flow showerhead (which I actually bought with points from the credit card, but I'll count the cost for this exercise) took us from 2.8 gallons per minute of shower to 1.5 gallons per minute of shower. That's a savings of $0.038597 per minute of shower time, which at Pinch Manor pretty much adds up to at least $1.16 a day. Hey, we drink cheap coffee, we get to take looooong showers.** Your luxury allowances may vary :D
So with those $100 we are saving probably to the tune of $2.25 on an average day, which means that that investment will amortize in 44.44 days, or in a little more than a month.
I'll take it.
The point of this little exercise? Those pennies add up. And up and up. An average savings of $2 a day means that we are at this point (it's been over a month since we installed these) saving about $60 dollars a month or about $720 a year, give or take a few dollars. That is something that will show itself over the next few months in our water/gas bill which I have already adjusted down a bit (we were at $115 for those two, $85 now).
And the new showerhead, while having a lower flow, means that neither hubbin nor I have run out of hot water (40 gallons last a lot longer now) while contemplating life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the shower. This is a win for us.
Next water related projects we are saving up for: On demand water heater so we can pinch a few pennies out of the gas bill and a reverse osmosis water filtration system for our drinking water (not a savings in money, but in health)
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
*our bathroom is the kind of pink that always puts me in mind of someone who has kidney failure and a really bad sunburn, not a pretty colour.
**at least until we can afford a hot tub, which you will know, because there will be water stains on this page
I mentioned that we spent about $100 on a low flow toilet and shower head.
The toilet was because the original one installed in our house was a custom made item, that after over 50 years of absolutely no maintenance whatsoever gave up the ghost and leaked. From everywhere. And getting custom seals to fix the pink abomination* would have been more expensive than buying the basic model at local home improvement warehouse for all of $80 plus taxes and installing it, which we did ourselves and it was EASY.
The new toilet is a low flow model that uses 1.4 gallons per flush. Our old model used 9 gallons per flush. We pay $0.02969 (that's 3 cent) per gallon of water, so that's a total savings of $0.225644 or 22cent per flush.
The new toilet saves us more than a dollar a day in water.
We are actually really upset that we didn't change it out years ago. (staves off descend into the shouldacouldawouldas by focusing on the fact that we have now done it and it's over)
The low flow showerhead (which I actually bought with points from the credit card, but I'll count the cost for this exercise) took us from 2.8 gallons per minute of shower to 1.5 gallons per minute of shower. That's a savings of $0.038597 per minute of shower time, which at Pinch Manor pretty much adds up to at least $1.16 a day. Hey, we drink cheap coffee, we get to take looooong showers.** Your luxury allowances may vary :D
So with those $100 we are saving probably to the tune of $2.25 on an average day, which means that that investment will amortize in 44.44 days, or in a little more than a month.
I'll take it.
The point of this little exercise? Those pennies add up. And up and up. An average savings of $2 a day means that we are at this point (it's been over a month since we installed these) saving about $60 dollars a month or about $720 a year, give or take a few dollars. That is something that will show itself over the next few months in our water/gas bill which I have already adjusted down a bit (we were at $115 for those two, $85 now).
And the new showerhead, while having a lower flow, means that neither hubbin nor I have run out of hot water (40 gallons last a lot longer now) while contemplating life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the shower. This is a win for us.
Next water related projects we are saving up for: On demand water heater so we can pinch a few pennies out of the gas bill and a reverse osmosis water filtration system for our drinking water (not a savings in money, but in health)
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
*our bathroom is the kind of pink that always puts me in mind of someone who has kidney failure and a really bad sunburn, not a pretty colour.
**at least until we can afford a hot tub, which you will know, because there will be water stains on this page
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Looking forward and planning for saving
We got our water/gas bill today and it made me ecstatic (with one exception, but that's a rant that doesn't belong here).
Yup. Building up the cushion for Winter, when I know our bill will be higher than our self-calculated monthly budget of $85 a month.
In case you are thinking of putting yourself on a monthly budget that is administered by the company that delivers your utilities, DON'T. Our self calculated monthly budget (one years worth of bills added up and divided by 12, plus a little bit) is about 20% less than the company calculated budget and I have never had to pay extra, quite the contrary, I can usually skip a month, which comes in handy in the summer when we go on vacation.
Here's how I get to have utility bills that tell me to not pay them:
See the CR? That means credit. and yes, I overpaid our budget last month by a whopping $15, because I anticipate a rather cold, harsh Winter and want to go in with a solid, cushiony, thick layer of credit, so I don't panic about the cost of turning the heat up to 67degrees and don't feel like an utter failure for not starting up the fireplace each and every day. I tend to do that in months where the hubbin gets three paychecks, and bank the rest of that 'extra' money. It's a great way to build up some savings without feeling it if you can budget like we do.
If you look at the comparison chart the company provides (and it's accurate, I keep the bills and have checked) you will see that our consumption is almost half of what it was. We installed a low flow toilet and a low flow shower head to match our HE washing machine and dishwasher. That is the part that I have been waiting for, a full month of using them. I LOVE IT. An investment of just under $100, $80 of which was the toilet we had to replace or dig an outhouse (not happening) and according to this bill that will pay for itself in less than half a year. WOOT.
The Pinch Manor budget is based on part of the hubbins income alone, and on 24 pay-periods, rather than the 26 he actually gets. We have the luxury (and we know it's a luxury) to have access to more funds when we need them, because we both work and our income is more than we spend. That last part is really the key. Spend less than you make, bank the rest or pay down on debt or invest it somehow (more on that in a little bit).
What you see on this bill is what I do with all our utilities. I have figured out what our average consumption is and I overpay that by a little bit (basically I round up to the next $5 increment). It took us a while to get there, and I started with just one of the bills and slowly built up a cushion. Now we are at the point where we basically don't pay utilities for July and August, and that's an extra roughly $600 I get to play with over those two months. And it's not hurting us over the rest of the year. You may find different ways to build in cushions for yourself, this is working for us.
Here's our budget:
Yes, we have cable. And cell phones. And Amazon Prime. And pets that cost money that we account for in the budget. How frivolous ;)
The line items you are looking for that are not here are clothing, entertainment and travel. You're right, they are not there.
Clothing: I work from home, so my clothing expenses are microscopic to begin with and both myself and the hubbin are perfectly content with mostly wearing second hand items, augmented by some nice, classic pieces that serve us for years so we can actually cover our clothing expenses by sticking them in with our budget. No need to buy a new pair of shoes every week to be at the top of the fashion pyramid. We invest (told you we'd get back there) in quality. Costs more up front, true, but $300 spent on a good pair of boots that last for a decade or more and can be repaired is so much better than the accumulation of $35 boots bought instead. And because I view shopping as a sport and am rather competitive, I find some of those classic pieces for a few bucks.
Entertainment: Actually, it's sort of in there, because we have cable and hubbin goes and sees movies at the theatre every now and then. What you are not seeing is a line item for the fun things we do, because if we don't have the money for it we don't do it. It's that simple. Where I squeeze most of the money for this is actually our grocery budget. I allocate $180, but I beat that budget on a regular basis (I did mention I am competitive, right) and squirrel the leftovers away to have fun with. I augment these funds with money I make from side jobs, so not our regular income, which is fully allocated, but little things like selling books on e-bay or doing a custom job for someone.
Travel: This is something we love to do, and it's also something we don't budget for, on purpose. It's what we save for, part of why we pinch dead presidents and our joy in life. It's not part of the budget. It is, for us, the REASON for the budget. When we both generate and income, or when we have an influx of money, we do not adjust our budget upward, we put that 'extra' either toward paying off debts, retirement savings (if it's a long term thing) or we use it to go someplace or do something on our bucket list. In the last few years that's been our one summer vacation.
For some people the reason to budget is because they have to make ends meet, which is actually how we started down this path, for some it's to send their kids to college, or a myriad of other reasons that are all their own and that's how it should be. For us being able to do what we want is the reason we are sticking with a budget that I have been told over and over cannot work for anyone.
I might be slightly contrary, I love it when people tell me something I am doing ever day of my life is something that can't be done. ;) Actually, that is quite possibly the greatest motivator for me, the fairly constant reminder to stick to being frugal and to continually look for more ways to squeeze a few more bucks out somewhere. I get quotes for car insurance every 6 months, we switched our cell phone providers and refinanced the house twice in one year, we call the cable company every six months like clockwork to see if there is a deal to be had, and we watch our credit debt like a hawk with OCD. It's a lot of little things that keep us on track and I find satisfaction in being able to do it. And that's kind of the key to doing it long term. You have to have a passion for it.
And you have to work together and compromise... The wailing and gnashing of teeth when I cancelled cable was causing strife and so we got it back. It's completely worth the $1152 a year to have a happy hubbin. It would be a bargain at twice the price. Just not sure I would be able to stick to 'below US $17,500 at that point, though, there's probably not enough fat left to trim... mmmmh.
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
Yup. Building up the cushion for Winter, when I know our bill will be higher than our self-calculated monthly budget of $85 a month.
In case you are thinking of putting yourself on a monthly budget that is administered by the company that delivers your utilities, DON'T. Our self calculated monthly budget (one years worth of bills added up and divided by 12, plus a little bit) is about 20% less than the company calculated budget and I have never had to pay extra, quite the contrary, I can usually skip a month, which comes in handy in the summer when we go on vacation.
Here's how I get to have utility bills that tell me to not pay them:
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| How the heck is there already cat fur on this bill? |
See the CR? That means credit. and yes, I overpaid our budget last month by a whopping $15, because I anticipate a rather cold, harsh Winter and want to go in with a solid, cushiony, thick layer of credit, so I don't panic about the cost of turning the heat up to 67degrees and don't feel like an utter failure for not starting up the fireplace each and every day. I tend to do that in months where the hubbin gets three paychecks, and bank the rest of that 'extra' money. It's a great way to build up some savings without feeling it if you can budget like we do.
If you look at the comparison chart the company provides (and it's accurate, I keep the bills and have checked) you will see that our consumption is almost half of what it was. We installed a low flow toilet and a low flow shower head to match our HE washing machine and dishwasher. That is the part that I have been waiting for, a full month of using them. I LOVE IT. An investment of just under $100, $80 of which was the toilet we had to replace or dig an outhouse (not happening) and according to this bill that will pay for itself in less than half a year. WOOT.
The Pinch Manor budget is based on part of the hubbins income alone, and on 24 pay-periods, rather than the 26 he actually gets. We have the luxury (and we know it's a luxury) to have access to more funds when we need them, because we both work and our income is more than we spend. That last part is really the key. Spend less than you make, bank the rest or pay down on debt or invest it somehow (more on that in a little bit).
What you see on this bill is what I do with all our utilities. I have figured out what our average consumption is and I overpay that by a little bit (basically I round up to the next $5 increment). It took us a while to get there, and I started with just one of the bills and slowly built up a cushion. Now we are at the point where we basically don't pay utilities for July and August, and that's an extra roughly $600 I get to play with over those two months. And it's not hurting us over the rest of the year. You may find different ways to build in cushions for yourself, this is working for us.
Here's our budget:
| CC for items listed as incl., I use the points to buy stuff | 362.00 |
| fuel | incl $90 |
| Cell phones | incl $40 |
| Groc | incl $180 |
| Amazon Prime | incl $7 |
| Magic Jack | incl $5 |
| Pet expenses | incl $40 |
| gas/water | 85.00 |
| electric | 85.00 |
| Cable | 96.00 |
| Insurance | 70.00 |
| Mortgage | 730.00 |
| other stuff/squish factor | 30.00 |
| Total Bills | 1,458.00 |
| Yearly expenses | 17,496.00 |
Yes, we have cable. And cell phones. And Amazon Prime. And pets that cost money that we account for in the budget. How frivolous ;)
The line items you are looking for that are not here are clothing, entertainment and travel. You're right, they are not there.
Clothing: I work from home, so my clothing expenses are microscopic to begin with and both myself and the hubbin are perfectly content with mostly wearing second hand items, augmented by some nice, classic pieces that serve us for years so we can actually cover our clothing expenses by sticking them in with our budget. No need to buy a new pair of shoes every week to be at the top of the fashion pyramid. We invest (told you we'd get back there) in quality. Costs more up front, true, but $300 spent on a good pair of boots that last for a decade or more and can be repaired is so much better than the accumulation of $35 boots bought instead. And because I view shopping as a sport and am rather competitive, I find some of those classic pieces for a few bucks.
Entertainment: Actually, it's sort of in there, because we have cable and hubbin goes and sees movies at the theatre every now and then. What you are not seeing is a line item for the fun things we do, because if we don't have the money for it we don't do it. It's that simple. Where I squeeze most of the money for this is actually our grocery budget. I allocate $180, but I beat that budget on a regular basis (I did mention I am competitive, right) and squirrel the leftovers away to have fun with. I augment these funds with money I make from side jobs, so not our regular income, which is fully allocated, but little things like selling books on e-bay or doing a custom job for someone.
Travel: This is something we love to do, and it's also something we don't budget for, on purpose. It's what we save for, part of why we pinch dead presidents and our joy in life. It's not part of the budget. It is, for us, the REASON for the budget. When we both generate and income, or when we have an influx of money, we do not adjust our budget upward, we put that 'extra' either toward paying off debts, retirement savings (if it's a long term thing) or we use it to go someplace or do something on our bucket list. In the last few years that's been our one summer vacation.
For some people the reason to budget is because they have to make ends meet, which is actually how we started down this path, for some it's to send their kids to college, or a myriad of other reasons that are all their own and that's how it should be. For us being able to do what we want is the reason we are sticking with a budget that I have been told over and over cannot work for anyone.
I might be slightly contrary, I love it when people tell me something I am doing ever day of my life is something that can't be done. ;) Actually, that is quite possibly the greatest motivator for me, the fairly constant reminder to stick to being frugal and to continually look for more ways to squeeze a few more bucks out somewhere. I get quotes for car insurance every 6 months, we switched our cell phone providers and refinanced the house twice in one year, we call the cable company every six months like clockwork to see if there is a deal to be had, and we watch our credit debt like a hawk with OCD. It's a lot of little things that keep us on track and I find satisfaction in being able to do it. And that's kind of the key to doing it long term. You have to have a passion for it.
And you have to work together and compromise... The wailing and gnashing of teeth when I cancelled cable was causing strife and so we got it back. It's completely worth the $1152 a year to have a happy hubbin. It would be a bargain at twice the price. Just not sure I would be able to stick to 'below US $17,500 at that point, though, there's probably not enough fat left to trim... mmmmh.
That's all I got for now,
Happy Pinching
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