Saving Money

First of all I want to say a very HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! To all of you mothers out there. (I know it is late but oh well. ) I hope you had a good one. I did. Saturday, Paul had to go list some properties and so I wasnt going to get to do anything special. Plus Jack was at his Moms house so.... Anyway, with the storms on and off all day and cranky kids from being inside all day, it wasnt going to well. I was about ready to give baths and settle down for the evening..(5:30) when Paul called and said that some of his listings got postponed because of the weather. He wanted to know if I wanted to come to (the town where he does real estate...20 min away) and have supper and just goof off. I said sure. So the kids and I got ready in record time, got in the truck just as huge drops of rain started falling and took off. About 4 miles down the road, I couldnt see to hardly drive...so I called Paul to see what the weather was going to do there and he said this storm had just came over and was gone in like 5 minutes..well it lasted us almost all the way there...and the wind was horrible..it was the kind that you have a gust that blows the truck sideways and just as you adjust to that it lets go and you are overcorrecting..man...i didnt like it. But I always turn the radio on when we are driving in storms...it helps me and the girls to calm down and it worked cause when I turned it on, Carrie Underwoods "Jesus take the wheel" was playing..you talk about calming. Anyway, turns out that our town had just went under a tornado warning when I was leaving. Yes I am glad I left because we live in a double wide trailor and I would have spent the evening in our closet with the girls (I know you are supposed to get out of trailors but I dont have anywhere else to go..). I on the other hand got to spend a relaxing evening with my hubby and babies and got to buy groceries without stress because hubby was watching the kids and I got to get two new shirts...(they were on sale for $4. apiece at Catos...I love Catos. (I dont buy clothes anymore unless they are at least 50% off). And I got to test drive an Altima... :) Gotta love my wonderful husband. Yesterday, wehad lunch after Church with our parents..(Jack and Darlene) and I called my mom to see how her mothers day was going....Then the best Mothers day present of all..my niece Miranda was baptized.....even though she is my niece, there cant be a better motheres day present than knowing that your daughter (niece, granddaughter) has accepted God into her heart and wants to walk a new life with God....What a wonderful day. Of course she made uncle pauls day....he got to baptize her!



Surfing blogs this morning, I noticed my sister had a post up about saving money. I would like to share some ways that I save money around here...If you are still with me. I started about a year ago, making my own homemade spaghetti sauce,bread, laundry detergent, and some household cleaners. I no longer make my household cleaners. I do use baking soda and vinegar at times to clean stubborn stains or to mop my floor to get it all shiny and clean. I still make detergent although I am looking at ways to make it cheaper. My bread is a work in progress. Its getting there. I just cant knead it for as long as it has to be and I am not fortunate enough yet to have a Kitchen Aid or a Bosh. I am saving though.

We have not bought meat hardly for the past 9 months. In deer season, Paul shot three deer. Some people think this is more expensive than buying meat. He has his lifetime liscense so we dont have to buy tags and all that. The only thing that cost us money this year was two trips to hunt and three bullets. Not alot when you add it up. Cause the trips was when he was working real estate and went hunting when he got through. on the way home. So it didnt cost extra gas money. We also invested in a commercial meat grinder. This way, we dont pay a processing fee for our meat.

For Christmas, my parents had a cow butchered and split it between us three kids. We are still eating on our part. Paul likes dark meat chicken for his chicken meat. He is not a big white meat person. So I buy a pack of thighs for about 8 bucks and split it into three or four bags. If we have Chicken and Dumplings or chicken noodle soup (which is about the only chicken meals we have around here.....lol) every other week, then three bags will last us 1 1/2 months. If I want Chicken breast, I buy the 6.98 pack at Wal Mart and it last me about 2 weeks for me and the kids to eat for lunch. Hopefully in a year or two we will have our own chickens and can have meat off of them in time. We also buy pork chops if they are on sale.

As far as vegetables and fruit go, since I am no longer buying that much meat, I can spend more money on these things. I dont actually spend that much more, I just take my meat money and put it towards veggies. But we have a garden planted so hopefully, we wont be buying veggies that much longer. Fruit...I buy bannanas and apples every week. The rest, we get if it is on sale. IF not, we dont need it anyway.

Bread. like i said, I am trying to learn to make my own but so far only one loaf has turned out okay. I will keep trying though.

We eat alot of potatoes. I know I have had people tell me they are not good for us....Paul is not a rice person. So we eat rice for lunch if we are going to eat it and then for supper, if we have potatoes, I just eat more meat and less starch.

We dont have dessert hardly at all. If we do, it is homemade from scratch usually. I made a cheesecake the other day. And when it is gone, if we want something, we will make it but not likely. We wont want another one for a couple of weeks.

I dont use white sauces anymore...1) they are not good for you....2) they cost more than red sauces to make... simple as that.

I only buy books on special ocassions like when we are going on a trip and I dont want the library books to get lost or tore up. But usually, I just take books we already have. I am fixing to start buying a few books here and there to get my library stocked up for school. Now if I get birthday money or extra money from selling something, I will buy myself a book. But most usually not, because I read them once and that is it. If I buy it is an educational book...Like "Facing Your Giants" by Max Lucado.

Clothes.....hmmmmm. Well lets see. I have one pair of jeans, one khaki skirt, one denim skirt, two dresses, on pair of slacks for Church, a few T's, and probably four or five dressy shirts for Church and to wear out to eat with hubby :) (which we dont do anymore except for special occasions...my birthday and mothers day was combined into one dinner..) Paul has quite a few more clothes than me because he has to have nice clothes to sell real estate in. and he has to have clothes to go to the other job in. I think I may have 4 pairs of shoes. (tennis, ballet flats, and two or three pair of flipflops..) Paul has dress shoes and work boots. The girls have way more than they need. I need to rememdy that and have a yard sale. Jack has just enough.

Household stuff...like new dishtowels, towels, washcloths, stuff like that, I dont buy unless on sale..(If I catch a sale and have the extra money, I will buy it and put it up until needed. )

I plan my menu so that I know exactly what to buy and I dont buy any extra until after I get home and put away all my groceries. Then if I have to go anywhere, I will pick up extras. You find out that you can do without alot of stuff that way. We drink water, tea, homemade lemonade, the girls get grape juice...no other kind of juice. Jason gets water, lemonade, tea, juice (from Wic) and two cups of milk aday. Jack and Paul are the only ones that drink Milk and I cook with it some..(we get it on wic) We get cheese on wic and what we dont, I buy at sams. I make homemade pancakes and waffles and all but Jack and Paul use honey not syrup..(I buy the big bottle of honey at Sams) We dont use jelly that much. Maybe if I had my own fruit trees we would. We use peanut butter because we get it on wic. We eat rice for lunch alot because it is cheap. We eat alot of eggs. Whats odd is that because the girls are getting used to this, they dont mind....they dont have alot of sweets or alot of store bought conveniences because they dont know what they are. Granny's and Papas tend to spoil them but thats okay. Their house is the only place that they get cookies unless they are homemade. They get an occasional pop from papa but we try to limit those because of Kylies urinary tract infections. If we get a wild hare to eat out for lunch, it is McDonalds cheeseburgers.....not very nutritious but it satisfies our cravings for a while.

Our special thing around here is Friday night pizza and a movie. We get the $10 pizza from Wal-Mart..(out of their deli) and rent a $3 movie and a loaf of french bread and pops...about $15. Not bad when if we all went to a movie and out to eat pizza, youd be looking at $50.

Lets see what else.....hmmmmm. Thats about it for now. I cant think of anything else. Oh yeah. I dont shop at Wal Mart that much. I buy my groceries at the local super market. I read somewhere that Wal-Mart only saves you money if the local stores dont have anything on sale that you need. I believe it. When I was shopping at Wal Mart, I was spending about $50-$60 more than I do now. They have a good saling tactic...put it in front of them and they will buy it. But you come out of there with alot of stuff that you dont need. So I shop at the local store and every two weeks on pay day, we go to Sams after Church and get our bulk stuff....we have started buying our toilet paper there...and stuff that we use alot. While there, we get homeschool books and pick up some other household stuff. I do get some of my personal stuff at wal mart but they are putting a target in not far from the sams club that we shop at nd for some reason, I dont spend as much at target as wal mart. Not because they dont have as much or its not as good...they have more and it is better. I think it is because they dont have stuff in the middle of their aisle to tempt you...you can actually walk and enjoy your shopping trip.

Anyway, I have to go start supper preps now and get to town to shop the monday morning meat sale.....and go to the library....(if my munchkins will be have....I have a list of things I want to check out today. We may even go by the fabric store on the way home to get some more fabric for dresses...(since I save money on groceries this week.)

Thanks for sticking it out this long. I hope some of this helped. Just things I do to help save my husbands hard earned money.

Love and Prayers
Crystal