Bargains

Blech. I have a chest cold just now. Rene and Turtle have it too and are pretty miserable.

I have my yard sale treasures from the weekend to cheer me up though. Have I mentioned before that I *love* yard sales??

I got myself all these clothes, for 25c each



And I'm mostly pleased about these books



This is $65 worth of books, which I got for a grand total of $3. I'm so pleased.

Oh and I got one of them toast rack things for 25c.


I love toast that has gone crisp before you spread the butter on, so the butter doesn't melt into it, but stays on the surface for you to stick your teeth into with that satisfying crunch toast noise. Yum.

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How to make a self watering container

I've read that a self watering container is best for growing vegetables in, because they can take as much water as they want, when they want, so less risk of over or underwatering. It's also less maintenance for the gardener, as they don't require watering every day.

But they can be pretty pricey. We bought 2 medium sized self-watering containers for $10 each, and that was as cheap as we had seen them. We were going to need more than that but were about out of money. So we decided to make our own, cheaply.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED





A regular plant pot or tub
putty
scrap fabric
scissors
a smaller tub for insert/reservoir - make sure it fits the bottom of your tub without leaks in the sides
A piece of piping, or you could use an empty plastic bottle


1st
Fill in any drainage holes in the pot. You can use putty or line with a bag etc.


2nd
Poke holes in the insert/smaller tub.


3rd
Cut up strip of fabric and thread them through the holes in the insert. These will act as the wic, to suck up water from the reservoir.




4th
Cut up piping, or plastic bottle. We will be using this to fill the reservoir with water, every few days.



5th
Cut a hole in the insert, to place the piping.



6th
Place insert in pot, make sure there are no gaps.







7th
Have your kids help you if you want. They come in handy for that.





8th
Try to stop your 7 month old from ingesting too many microbes





9th
Fill with dirt, plant your plants. Water from above once, then fill the reservoir. From now on, only water from the pipe.

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Frugal Grocery Shopping Challenge

I'll spare you the gory details and just say; we didn't get paid a full wage last month, and don't get a full wage until the 15th May. Rene started a new job, which pays more, and we'll be able to relax a bit soon. Meanwhile we have a choice - buy groceries or pay bills. Both of those things are rather important.

Thankfully, here in Lincoln, NE, we have Food Net.

Now, I've mentioned foodnet on my blog before, and I've also mentioned it on facebook. I've received some questions about it, and also some comments. There seem to be some misunderstandings of what food net is all about.

It's not a government funded thing. It doesn't rely on citizen's donations. It's not necessarily a charity to help the poor. Although it does that. It is a non-profit organization, run by volunteers, aiming to meet the hunger needs of people in Lincoln, while saving food from going to the landfill. They take take the food that stores would normally throw away, they sort it and take it to foodnet sites where ALL people are free to come and take their share.

Quote from their website:

Q: Are there any income restrictions?
A: No. Anyone that is in need of food is welcome to pick up from any site. There are no qualifications, no forms, no income guidelines, and no limits on how many times you visit the sites.

We are taking food which is in perfectly decent condition, yet would otherwise be tragically wasted and thrown away, and we are putting it to good use. Many needy people use foodnet to feed their families. Some people come along just for the eco friendly aspect of it. Others, just because every little bit helps.

This month, we've really needed it, and so far we've visited a number of times.


Our challenge is to spend as close to $0 as possible on food. This week, we spent just under $40 to feed our family of 6. It's higher than I would have liked, but it's not bad. We spent that money on:

Milk
Butter
Toilet paper
Beer (ok, not an essential item, I know, but it was a nice treat!)
Cheese
Cream cheese


Everything else came either from foodnet, or some other bits and pieces which were gifted to us by friends.

Here's some of the stuff we picked up from Food Net






Here's what we ate this week (some of this used resources we already had in the house)

Sunday: Creamy, spinach and mushroom French bread Strombolis, honey chili tofu kebabs (UK style kebabs, like a gyro type thing)





I planned to photograph all our meals, but that was the only one I ended up taking. Oh, other than this lunch




Monday lentil chili on mashed potato

Tuesday potato fritters, cheesy broccoli rice casserole

Wednesday spaghetti with peas, garlic bread

Thursday home made pizza, garlic bread

Friday jalapeno poppers, beans n toast

Saturday Cheesy Pasta Marinara


Lots of yummy meals. I forgot what all we did for lunches but we were well fed. Not too bad for $40. Let see how well we can do this week...

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Food Net

Is this just a Lincoln, Nebraska thing? This is fantastic, I don't know why it took us until now to discover it.

Food Net is a non profit, volunteer run organization, whose slogan is "Tummy fill, not landfill". They encourage stores and food businesses to donate the produce and foods that they are about to throw away, because they're at or past sell by date, then they let people come and take a portion of it for free, at particular pick up points on particular dates. There are many locations throughout the city and many times through the week.

We went yesterday. Rene and I were each allowed to sign up, so we got double the amount. We brought our bags and just filled up with what they said we were allowed. The only things that weren't in fantastic condition were tomatoes and bananas and bell peppers. The tomatoes worked fine in a sauce for enchiladas last night and and the bell peppers will most likely go in a sauce too. Or a curry. The bananas were perfect for banana bread, which I also made last night and enjoyed a slice of this morning for breakfast.

Additionally, we got 3 packs of donuts (not so healthy, but the kids were thrilled!), 2 heads of lettuce, 2 bags of salad, 1 large potato, 1 bag small potatoes, 3 turnips, 1 summer squash, 1 bag green beans, 1 package broccoli, 2 avocados, 1 slice apple pie, 1 cinnamon bun thingy, 1 poppy seeded artisan loaf, 1 pack sprouted wheat bagels and 1 round pesto bread thingy (which tasted great with butter and mozzarella, then put in the oven for a bit last night, to go with the enchiladas and salad. All for free. And we were doing our bit for the environment, by saving it from the landfills.

It was also an enjoyable experience, all huddling together outside in the cold, waiting for our number to be called to go inside the church and collect the goodies. There were people of all different ages, cultures, shades, colors, accents and no doubt fascinating stories to tell. Everyone was extremely friendly, open and helpful. There was a spirit of community like you just don't feel when you're walking through Hyvee with the posh folk.

I'm thinking we'll be doing this a lot more often! I wish every city had one.

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Real Food

Warm, freshly baked wholegrain bread
Cream cheese
Sliced tomatoes
Organic green peppers (can't always afford organic, but , the local food co-op does "tired vegetables", which don't look any worse that Walmart's regular veggies, yet it's pesticide free and if you get there at the right time of year you'll get local produce. And this was a whole paper sack with like 8 peppers or something, for $2.94! Not bad.
Grated cheddar

= one yummy lunch.

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Jackpot

I intended to post this last week but never got round to it.

Rene came home from work one day last week with 4 paper bags full of beautiful, quality girl clothes and 2 large plastic sacks full of adorable baby boy clothes! There was something for everybody, and some gap, old navy and gymboree. All the clothes look awesome.

The only thing better than yard sale clothes is free clothes! Especially gorgeous ones like these. Here are a couple of my favourites:



Sweet sweater for Zoe



Tommy Hilfiger outfit



gymboree leggings for Lana and sweater for Glenn

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Frugal Halloween

Here's how we dressed up for Halloween on a tight budget.




Zoe : Pumpkin: Hand stitched Pumpkin costume - yard sale treasure - cost to us:- 25c
Lana : Princess: Dress was a gift from Grammy, cost to us:- free
wig was something we had in their dress up box for a while
Kaya : Darth Vader: Light saber was a gift from Granny McF, years ago (made it all the way from Scotland) cost to us:- free
cloak was made from some excess mulching stuff we had left over
Black clothing was stuff we already had
Mask was made by Daddy out of cereal boxes and shoe boxes cost to us:- free
Glenn : Ladybug: costume given to us by my friend Stacy cost to us:- free
Rene: A Jedi : Light saber given to us by Granny cost to us:- free
cloak was a Christmas present from Granny a few years ago.


Here's a close up of the cutest ladybug ever

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Favourite recent pic of Zoe and a bargain

Here's my favourite recent pic of Zoe



And the bargain is the outift she's wearing. It's a 3 piece from Old Navy, it's super cute and great quality. I got it at a yard sale for $2. I love yard sales! here's a pic where you see the clothes better.

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Yard sale deals

It can be difficult finding clothes in my large size, especially considering we don't have much of a budget for buying clothes at all. I usually wait until the goodwill store has a 99c sale day and go scouring through looking for something that will fit me, then I buy it no matter how gross it looks!


But I found some great deals at a yard sale today. I wish we had more cash on us, there were loads more great clothes I had to walk away from....

Zoe was so desperate to pose with me.

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I love a bargain

We only had 2 small size wraps for Glenn, which I had thought would suffice. My reasoning was, 1 in the wash, 1 on the baby. However, I forgot about newborn breastfed poop and how runny it is and that it leaks all over the sides of the diaper!.


So we were going to have to buy some more, but money is very tight right now. They cost about $8-10 each for a cheap one.


We noticed yesterday that one of our local consignment stores sells cloth diapers! Yay! We picked up a pack of 3 wraps for $8! Bargain.

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