May Digest and Member Pages are Up!

Hi all you Molly Members! Just a note that the May Digest and Member page are now ready for download. Just log in at the upper right corner to access your Digest and freebies!

This month’s Digest is titled Centsible Celebrations and offers lots of ideas for gifts, celebrations and entertaining. Begin with the Basics focuses on fruits and veggies and includes a recipe for a homemade produce wash and Lorrie Flem’s Periodic Table of Produce. We have an amazing Feather Your Nest article that you won’t believe unless you see. I almost hesitate to share here, without pictures, for fear it will sound tacky. Trust me, it’s not. We’ll show you how to make gorgeous, realistic looking roses, using coffee filters. No kidding!

In fact, this Digest is full of gorgeous photos to go with our several how-to articles. Learn to make lovely mini-cakes from recycled cans and see a beautiful wedding with homemade favors and decor. And, of course, all our regular articles; kid’s corner, weekly menu and shopping list, helpful forms, What’s On Sale, This is My Story and more. Enjoy!

Oh! And I’d better not forget the Member Page. This month, you’ll receive the newly available Inexpensive Organization E-book from Molly writers Dena Wood and Eleanor Joyce as well as A Baby Shower for Jesus by Deborah Wuehler. And, of course, lots and lots of hospitality and celebration related links and resources, including Freezer Cooking info and forms, freezer and pantry inventory forms, a burger cookbook and lots more.

Continue reading May Digest and Member Pages are Up! …

From Econobusters.

Dehydrating Question

From Kerri;

Would you mind sharing what model Excalibur
Dehydrator you are using?  There are so many to
choose from…what is a good size model to start
with for the investment?

Kerri, I have a larger one (9 trays)only because I do a lot of dehydrating. Not only do I dehydrate fruits and vegetables but I did lots of flowers for awhile for Tawra. She did dried flower arrangements and wreaths at one point and we both made and sold potpourri.

It really depends on several factors like do you have a garden? I don’t have a garden but I have several grocery stores where I get a lot of fruits and veggies on clearance or for very little. Do you have a large family?

You can do quite a bit with only a four tray one. For example I did a 5 lb plus a couple of extra bag of potatoes the other day and only needed 4 trays.

What I would do personally would get 1 with 4 or 5 trays then if I found I needed more I would buy another 4-5 tray one. The price wouldn’t be much different for 2 small then 1 large. Plus you don’t have to but for some reason I don’t like dehydrating some things together like onions and say apples so 2 units would solve that problem.

I do recommend when you start to start with apples. They are the easiest to do you can spritz them with lemon juice to prevent browning but I don’t because mine don’t brown that bad and I like the taste better without it.I don’t peel my apples that I am going to use for eating.I just slice and core. Even if they aren’t in season just buy a couple to experiment with to get started.

Hope this helps a little,

Jill

Continue reading Dehydrating Question …

From Living On A Dime Blog » Living On A Dime Blog.

Small Home Living: Advantages and Disadvantages

The financial advantages of living in a small home are pretty obvious. You spend less to heat the place. You don’t need as much furniture to fill the space. It takes less electricity to cool a small place. Less is more in that way.

An interesting question came up about stockpiling with sales, and how to balance frugality in a small space. I’m all for stockpiling and thought it was time to address this.

Freezer

The one thing I wish we had but don’t is a chest freezer. I’ve got a spot picked out where we can fit it, even in our little apartment. My husband says it’s not the right time, though, and he’s right. Our family is still small enough that the extra $5 it would cost us in electricity would not be saved by stockpiling on sales more than we do.

When we get one, we will get a BIG chest freezer and a new energy efficient one. A chest freezer is more energy efficient by design than an upright. The reason for that is that when you open a door of an upright, the cold air falls out the bottom. Cold air is heavy, so it basically stays put in a chest freezer.
(Currently in my freezer: Shown: ten 5lb rolls of ground beef, one 3lb roll of ground beef, five 5lb bags of mozzarella cheese, three 1lb bags of chopped peppers and onions, five 1lb bags of mixed berries. Not Shown, on door: four 1lb rolls of turkey, 2lbs grated summer squash, 2lbs broccoli, 2lbs brisket beef, bag of chopped apples for applesauce. Click to see in color)

So, I have to maximize the space in my freezer. It’s not that hard to put 100 pounds of food into a standard sized freezer, but you have to pick and choose what goes in. I can get various fruits and veggies at a reasonable price year round. So, it takes a rare deal for me to stock up on a sale of veggies. Some meats I can get consistently at a good price, but other meats vary in price, like beef. When I see brisket beef for $1.30 per pound or ground beef for $1.25 per pound, I stock up. I consistently can get chicken for $0.59 per pound, turkey for $1.00 per pound, and pork for $1.12 per pound, so I don’t stock up on those.

Refrigerator

In the fridge, I keep my semi-stable foods. There are obvious ones, like milk, cheese, butter, and eggs. I keep my potatoes and onions in my fridge as well, along with most vegetables. Most fruits reside on the table until eaten. We eat the potatoes before they turn sweet and onions that have been refrigerated don’t make me cry like room temperature onions do, but I don’t keep them in the same drawer as the potatoes. I keep lacto-fermented veggies in the fridge, and my husband’s leftovers. I also keep a jug of water in there just as filler for the electric bill.

Cabinet Space

I don’t buy a lot of shelf-stable foods. I buy flour, lard, salt, and canned tomatoes. Canned tomatoes are rarely on sale lower than the Walmart price. Salt and flour rarely go on sale either, so I don’t stock up much on these.

For couponers who have shelves upon shelves of boxed food, bought for pennies, I would recommend stacking. In a small home, thinking vertically is crucial.

Clothes

I have a full boys’ wardrobe up to four years old. I have bins stacked in the kitchen and labelled. I have two near empty bins for when Daniel turns five and six. When I hit yard sales, I am on the look out for a few pieces to finish his 4T wardrobe and pieces for the next few years up. Working with vertical space allows these bins to take up a little more space than a bureau would. With my bins, the lid of one holds the bottom of the next one up securely in place. When stacking bins, look for features that will make it near impossible to be tipped over.

Coming soon…

In the coming year, I’m going to be kicking off two new series. Touring Tuesdays will give you the opportunity to snoop around our apartment. Storage Solutions Saturday will highlight some of the ways that we can fit a bunch of stuff into small spaces without feeling crowded. Just like with FAQ Fridays, these are posts I’ve been meaning to get around to, but I need a structured framework to remind me to fit them in.

Continue reading Small Home Living: Advantages and Disadvantages …

From Under $1000 Per Month.

Thrifty Thursday Names the Vegetables

OK, are you like me? Do you see a great deal at the grocery store and think to yourself, “more of that would be better?” Well, I was thinking on whether or not this is always true, and I’ve decided that most of the time it is not.

Let me explain.

Every week, I look at the sales flyers for my grocery store, and make up a menu based upon what is on sale that week, especially as regards the meat and produce sales. The problem arises when I actually get to the store, list in hand, and see all those beautiful shiny fruits and vegetables. I want them all! It’s hard to stop with only what I need.

I realized that over time I was spending more than I wanted at the grocery store and we were wasting a large amount of food, especially the fruits and veggies. They simply would go bad before I could use them up.

Yes, I do freeze a large quantity of what I buy on sale, but the problem I was having was on the fruits and veggies that I would keep on hand for snacking. At the store, I would think, “Yes! More grapes would be good… that way we won’t run out…” Carry this across the board with many fruits and veggies over a year’s time, and I began to realize how much I could save if I would simply sit down and plan out our snacks better.

Basically, I call it the “Name That Produce Game.” Here’s how it works in my home: As I sit down to look at the sales sheets and make my menu, I simply make a space for snacks on my menu plan. The very first thing I do is look in my freezer. Do I have any previously bought produce in there that needs to be used up? If so, how could I incorporate it into my menu plan? Smoothies are a great option for frozen fruits and veggies.

Second, If what I have on hand is not enough to get my family through a week’s worth of snacks, what do I need to buy, and how much, realistically, will we consume? I mark down that number in red or highlight it so that I know my limit. This helps me distinguish how much we truly need verses how much I want. I don’t let myself go beyond this limit. If I am wrong on the number, and realize later in the week that I need more, well, I have a choice to make; I can either make another trip to the store (good planning usually eliminates this problem), or I can make do with other items that I already have.

How did I decide on the actual amount I needed for my family? I watched them eat for two weeks. I marked down at the end of each week food that had been wasted and subtracted that from what I bought. The number of fruits and veggies I needed on hand was much lower than I previously thought.

By naming my veggies, I am able to save $10 here and $30 there, sometimes more. It really adds up! Over a year’s time, that can be a significant savings that will help with paying off a bill, or saving towards a goal, like an emergency fund or a family vacation, or even a new car!

Sometimes it really is the little things that make the difference!

Have you noticed this same problem in your grocery shopping/budget? What other ways have you trimmed the fat off of your food bill? Leave a comment below and let us all know!

Continue reading Thrifty Thursday Names the Vegetables …

From Econobusters.