Note to self: When you put bacon cheeseburgers on the meal plan, you need to make sure you remember to actually make buns that morning.

Yeah, I forgot that and I didn't want to run and buy them from the store. Now that I have gotten into the swing of making bread and rolls again, I don't particularly want to eat the other stuff anymore. So I will make buns tomorrow and we will have bacon cheeseburgers tomorrow and I will bump everything on the meal plan by a day. Except Sunday, which will still be potroast. Saturday's meal can move to Monday or something.

This is just as well as I don't think the chicken will be thawed by tomorrow night anyway and I prefer to thaw things in the fridge instead of in the micro. I mean I'll use the micro if I need to, but I just prefer the other way, because sometimes the micro will cook the edges and the center will still be frozen and that's just a pain to deal with.

We had Thursday's corn and Wednesday's broccoli so I will have to rearrange things a bit but that is no big deal. Oh, and we had pork chops from the ranch for the protein. Oh, my gosh, I have never tasted such good pork chops in my life. I think this farm is the best thing that ever happened to us foodwise.

Tomorrow I will also make up one of my lunchtime low carb meatloaves. I usually make those twice a week so I don't have to think at lunch, I can just heat and eat. Sometimes I will only make one a week as I can get sick of it (though I rarely do and a few days off from it and I'm back to eating it). I usually add something green (cucumbers, celery) or salad greens.

I harvested the first greens from my window box garden today. I absolutely love fresh greens and these are so pretty and vibrant.



Of course this not so little guy was hanging out in the front garden.



Fortunately he was nowhere near my lettuce up on the deck. I don't think he'd be quite that brave with so many other tender plants to eat further away from human habitation.

I've got lots of blossoms on my organic heirloom brandywine tomato plant. I hope that bodes well for a good harvest.

It's a bit late, but better late than never, right?

Monday--Pizza, various fruit that needed eating, salad, milk

Tuesday--Bacon cheeseburgers with sweet potato tater tots and coleslaw, strawberries

Wednesday--Fried chicken (from the farm), bananas that need to get eaten, leftover coleslaw, broccoli/cauliflower, milk

Thursday--Chicken Ravioli Bake, corn on the cob, cantaloupe, milk

Friday--Steaks, potatoes fried in bacon grease saved from earlier in the week, sauteed green beans

Saturday--Baked potato soup, roasted turkey legs, and salad. Whatever fruit is left and also any leftover veggies if we have them.

Sunday--Beef chuck pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, strawberries.

I need to start coming up with lunch menus in a couple of weeks as well, once school lets out. I am thinking along the lines of taco salad or chicken salad or boneless skinless chicken with cheddar melted on top and finger veggies, like cucumbers, celery, radishes, etc. Hopefully the kohlrabi will be available by then, too. I love that stuff and it is so good for you.

BoA just sent us a letter saying they have sold our car loan to some bank I've never even heard of, Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania. I'm wishing now I'd just gone through Toyota financing again even if it was .5 percent less to do BoA.

At least it appears you can make your payments online with this new place. I am really unhappy about this, though, because if I'd wanted a different bank when I got the car loan, I would have gone with a different bank. I liked the convenience of having it in the same place as my credit cards so it would all show up on the same page. One place to monitor it, one place to keep track.

I suppose now that we only have one card with them left with a balance on it it isn't that much of a big deal. Our loan is long since closed, two of our master cards are paid off and there is only the one VISA with a small balance.

I guess I will adapt and change, but I really hate change unless I am the one instigating it. We may just see if we can refinance it with our local credit union. I like having a branch in town I can drive to if I have to wait until the last minute to make a payment. I had that with BoA. I don't have that with some bank on the opposite coast to where I live.

I guess it's just another step closer to wiping our feet of the Evil Empire forever, but I'd prefer to know at least a little something about this other place. And it isn't like they all were originally BoA cards to begin with. The two master cards were originally MBNA and the VISA was originally SeaFirst (a local bank that no longer exists), both of which were bought up by BoA and I didn't like that then, either. I eventually got used to it. I will again.

DH is safely off on his plane to Alaska. Before he went he emptied his wallet of change and ones so I got another $7.78 to add to the coin jar.

I spent about 40 minutes cleaning and organizing my fridge today. It hadn't been done in a while. I think I am the only one in the house who actually wipes up spills as they occur, because I found some unidentifiable nasty goo on the bottom of the fridge underneath the produce drawers. I probably should have used a couple of towels, but the stuff would have colored them if I had, so I mostly used far too many paper towels to sop it up and then an old brown wash cloth to clean it. At least the paper towels can go into the compost bin.

I still need to work on the door frame and the outside of the fridge door, and reorganize the stuff on the top, but I will do that tomorrow when I have more energy. It is nice to have it organized and know exactly what I have again, though. It makes it far easier to meal plan, which I have not done yet for this week, eeep! It also helps me not to waste my leftovers, or buy more of something that I do not need.

It came just in the nick of time, too. It was quick and easy to set up, only took ten minutes, but DH leaves for the airport in a few hours and will be gone for two weeks.

We won't do business with Wayfair again. When we ordered this bed frame we paid for next day air. It shipped on the 31st and arrived today. The put it in a ground shipment despite us having paid for next day air so it would get here before DH left. When we called them when it didn't arrive next day air they refunded the money for shipping (shipping is totally free now), but of course there was nothing they could do, since it was already on a truck "somewhere."

When we ordered it, it said it would be coming from a warehouse in Bremerton. Instead it came from Sacramento, so there was no chance of it getting here before today even though it arrived in Burlington on Friday. We tried to see if we could pick it up on Saturday when we were in Burlington, but no, because it had been shipped ground we could not. Ground was closed on Saturdays. If it had been shipped air like it was supposed to, we could have. But if it had been shipped air like it was supposed to it would have been here Thursday or Friday and we wouldn't have been wanting to go pick it up at the warehouse.

Still, it's arrived and we've set it up, but we are not 100% sure it's even the one we ordered. The photograph looks different and although the paperwork says the correct name, it does not match the name on the box. Still, it's heavy duty and seems to be working for what we need. DH is going to double check with them when he gets a minute, which may not be for a couple of days.

I am glad they at least refunded the shipping, but I am annoyed that I almost did not get my bed set up before DH had to leave. I guess so far they have handled it well enough, but I don't consider it good customer service if they screw it up so badly in the first place even if they are nice about fixing it. It would have been good value for the money if they'd just done it right in the first place.

At least the product works. I can already feel a huge difference in how the mattress is supported. No more buffalo wallow!

I almost never do this, but I hardly ever find something I like this much so I am. For the last two weeks I have been using a new product called Bread Armor to put my homemade bread in. These are heavy duty BPA-free, ziptop plastic bags made to store Artisan breads in that you buy at the store or bakery, like the luscious, crusty loaf of sourdough or French bread that is ever so enticing. Well, I thought if they could store bakery bread, they could certainly store my homemade bread. And can they ever!

You know those rolls we made last Sunday? They were finished today, 8 days later. There was not a hint of mold and they were still soft and fresh tasting. You don't get that sort of thing in your average ziptop bag.

I used to use one of the major namebrand ziptop bags to store my bread in, but they always fit awkwardly and they weren't big enough. Plus the bread would start to mold on day 4 without refrigeration. I don't like keeping bread in the fridge. It condenses. And anyone who has ever stored a loaf in the freezer knows that when you thaw it, the bottom part will be less than desireable eating.

Now I can leave it out on the counter for over a week. (The product says up to seven days, but I got 8). My regular bread doesn't last that long, but when we only make burgers every seven or eight days or a bit longer, those hamburger buns could be a problem. Not anymore!

And the best part is the bags are reusable. Just shake out the crumbs (save them for meatballs or meatloaf in your freezer) and it's ready to go. And when they do eventually wear out, they can go in the recycling. This is a win-win situation for me and I love that it's helping me reduce my waste output. That's frugal and sustainable.

Oh, and it wasn't terribly expensive as far as these things go, either. A 2 pack of French bread bags is $2.99 and I can fit two loaves of bread in that cut up (I lay the slices sideways and stack them three high) and the variety 3 pack, also $2.99 has one bag that is perfect for my rolls. I expect these to last a good long while based on their quality and I think that 15 uses per package would be the equivalent of using disposable ziptop bags. I will report in after 15 uses, and then again after 30, but the one I've used four times now and it's still in as good of shape as when it was brand new.

I am going to try using them for homemade French bread and pumpkin and zucchini bread when the right season hits and I'll write about how they do then, too. It might not work so well since those breads are kind of sticky, but who knows?

Anyway, here's the website if you'd like to check it out:

I added $1.61 in change to the coin jar today. I also added the leftover beef money to the freezer fund so that is now at $130.56.

And because these sort of posts are boring here are some photos I took yesterday:

Here are some of the chickens at the ranch we went to yesterday.



They have huge penned areas to roam in. And you can't see it, but they aren't just in the dirt section, but they have an opening to go back to that grassy part in the back of the photo, too. This was one of several large enclousures that the chickens rotate through and then they have portable hen houses that they hook to the tractor and pull to the new pasture when the time comes.

Here are the cattle in one of their pastures. I had to really zoom in so that clarity isn't as good as it should be, but you can see how they are in grass that is at least half as tall as they are.



And this is the organic grain mill which was really easy to track down. I thought their sign was very pretty, but it was high up so I didn't get it centered in the shot. This was the better of the two, though.

DH and I drove down to Burlington today. Our main purpose was to go the ranch and get sustainable, pasture-raised organic beef, pork, and chicken. And that was accomplished nicely. I set aside $300 and I actually came back with $30.56, so spent $269.44. I could have bought a bit more, but I thought this would fill our available freezer space nicely and it certainly seems like a month's worth of meat (if not more). The leftover $30.56 will go to our freezer fund.

Surprisingly, as expensive as this meat is, I think our grocery bill is actually going down. This meat is much more filling because our bodies recognize it as being more nutritionally sound, so we are eating much smaller portions of it at meal time, probably by half. And it tastes so much better and is much more satisfying. Flavor can be so key. I also love, love, love the fact that there is so much less packaging. It is wonderful not to have all those polystyrene meat trays to throw out all the time. I noticed it took longer to fill the garbage bin this month.

I ended up with 3 whole chickens (between 3 and 4 pounds each), 6 packages of bacon (about 8 pounds), one package of sweet breakfast sausage links (1.5 pounds), 8 pork chops, 4 beef chuck roasts (2.5 pounds each), and 8 pounds of hamburger. I forgot to ask them about a ham, doggone it!

We do still have some meat left from last month's purchase as well. 2 packs of hamburger, an entire flank steak (about the size of a good London Broil), 1 New York strip steak and 4 ribeyes (they did not get made this week after all because LIFE HAPPENED). Plus we didn't end up ever making the duck, it's still in the freezer. I just got really sick the one day and went down for about 24 hours and then was fine again. Oh, yes, and while rearranging the freezer I found some Cornish game hens, as well, so those need to get made.

I asked them about Thanksgiving turkeys and they do have them. They start accepting orders in July so I will need to remember that so I can get my order in. They range in size from 12 pounds to 22 pounds, so basically you order a small, a medium or a large and get something in that range. We will order a small, which is the 12 to 15 pound range.

I also asked them about the pork family boxes and we can order one of those soon if we decide we like the pork. We already know we like the bacon and the polish sausage. We got the pork chops to try. I also asked them if they make anything similar to a hot dog and they usually do come summer time so I will ask again the next time we go down.

A pork family box costs $300 and contains 35 pounds of meat. That works out to over $8 a pound though. Yes, it's organic and pasture-raised and sustainable, and that is super hard to find, but about the only thing I usually pay that much for is wild caught Pacific salmon and usually I can get that for $5.99 a pound if I buy the whole fish. They don't sell a whole pig, unfortunately, the box is the best you can get. I may just stick with individually buying their bacon and sausage and the occasional pork chops and not bother with the other things. We'll just see how good those chops are, first.

I'm pretty much set for meat this month, but I will need to go to the Food Co-op to pick up some more turkey hot dogs so I can make DS up a big batch of corn dogs at the Food Co-op, some roast beef, ham, and turkey slices from the deli for school lunches, and some duck eggs if they have them as they are so good for baking.

I also will need to buy flour soon. While we were in Burlington we found the organic flour mill where you can buy the 25 or 50 pound bags of flour or you can buy the 25 or 50 pound bags of wheat berries. I do eventually want to get my own little flour grinder, but that's way down the road after the beef purchase. Unfortunately the flour mill is not open to the public on Saturdays (or maybe at all on the weekend), which is the only time the farm store is open, so we can't make just one trip to get what we want.

I am about to open a five pound bag of their flour that I got at the store so I will see how long it lasts us and then calculate what our flour needs will be. It might be worth it to get 100 pounds when we go and store them in the new chest freezer when we get it. I wish I could find it sold locally in the 25 pound bag. I am going to ask at the Food Co-op, since I know they let you buy cases of stuff at discount if you are a member. So maybe they have the big bags available in the back or something. If it will save us a trip it might be worthwhile.

I think we are going to switch back to the Organic Valley Milk but in the cartons, not the plastic jugs, unless we can find the other organic milk in glass bottles. The type in glass bottles that we are drinking now is not homogenized and I really just can't handle the cream separating. We've tried shaking it to death but sometimes there are still lumps, and it's just texturally weird and visually unappealing. If it was just me I'd cope, but everyone wants us to at least have homogenized milk. I will buy the other for making yogurt though if my first experiment with making it tomorrow goes well.

While we were down in Burlington we stopped by the Corningware Outlet Store and bought an 18-piece set of Pyrex storage containers at a good discount. These are glass containers with BPA-free plastic lids. We got 20% off. They also had some lids you could buy individually for some containers we already had at home that came without lids. They were $1.49 each and if we'd ordered them direct from Pyrex they'd have been 3X that much with shipping. I also picked up a new set of measuring cups and spoons (the sort that have six different sizes on each). I'm not sure what we did with the receipt, but we spent around $54 there.

We also got gas today, $66.90.

And I think that's it. Tomorrow should be a restful day. DH is taking the kids to his mother's after lunch. I will be making yogurt and baking bread, but that is all that is on my agenda. I will probably finish reading a book and do some writing and maybe even watch the other half of the movie I started on Wednesday. And take an uninterupted bath. Ah, bliss!

And it was easy. Now I have additive and preservative and coloring free organic pickles that will last me quite some time, as I am the only one who eats dill pickles in this house (although DS did express an interest in trying these ones). This isn't as frugal as it will be when I have my own home-grown cucumbers to preserve, but then it'll be downright cheap.

Aren't they pretty?



They were quite simple to make. I simply mixed 8 cups of water with 1 cup of vinegar and 1 cup of pickling salt. Stir until the salt dissolves. This is probably the longest part of the process.

Crush 16 cloves of garlic and put 4 each into the bottom of a sterilized quart sized canning jar. Add 1 tbsp of dill seed (NOT dill weed) to each jar. Cut up your clean cucumbers and fill the jars. (I used pickling cucumbers and cut them into fourths, but you can leave them whole or cut them however you want. You can also use any cucumbers, this was just what they had that was pesticide free). I used five cucumbers per jar. Leave about an inch of head space in each jar.

Pour the water/vinegar/salt solution into each jar, leaving 3/4 inch of head space. Loosely put your sterilized lids and rings on. Set aside for 48 hours and then tighten the lids and refrigerate for up to six months.

This actually makes enough solution for 5 quart sized jars, but I didn't have enough cucumbers for that. This is the first time I made it so I'll know for next time. They already smell good so I sure hope they are as good as they smell and look. I'll know Monday at dinner time!

And this summer when my garden produces I want to make some that are shelf stable and not just ones that will keep in the fridge, because I'll want some for when these ones run out and there isn't a good source of cheap, organic cucumbers.

Today is payday, the small one, but they didn't take medical out and I had $1200 left over from last week, so I got to send a whole $800 extra to the BoA Visa. This isn't the regular monthly payment, it's all to principal, yay!

Payments made today:

$800.00 BoA VISA
__84.72 Car Insurance
__41.25 Old House Insurance
__37.61 Life Insurance DH
__32.70 Life Insurance Me
_154.00 Storage
__41.16 ADT Security on Old House
_100.00 Freezer Fund
_100.00 Mac Book Fund
+455.86 Mortgage (plus $80 extra)
----------
1847.30 Amount paid out today

Oh, we have to go pay car tabs, too, which is around $90. I don't remember for sure, but will edit this after we pay it. And I'll have to write a check next week for hot lunch money for DS. That will be for $9 for the rest of the school year. And I have to contribute allowances, $19 today and $19 next Friday.

That leaves me with $400 for the next two weeks, but no bills to pay before the 15th, which is our next payday. Plus I have $1000 in savings that is earmarked for old house stuff, but could be dipped into in a pinch and replaced on the 15th. And I also have the $300 from last week that is set aside to buy organic, pasture-raised, sustainable meat tomorrow. So mostly these next two weeks I'll just be buying milk and produce and some bulk spices.

It feels good to have everything squared away and to not have to think about finances really for the next 2 weeks. I mean I will think about them, obviously, when you blog this much about money, you do think about them. But not in a "what should I be doing now?" way.

Oh, and the Mac Book Fund and Freezer Fund are both new items on the budget. The freezer we are saving up for will be around $600. We need to buy that before we can buy half a beef, which I will start saving up for as soon as the freezer is paid for.

The Mac Book fund is for my daughter. She has waited patiently while everyone has gotten new computers in the last few years while she limps along on an old PC and she is next on the list. She wants a Mac Book for video editing and for college, so even though it will likely take me a year to save up for it, I thought I'd start now. She's just finishing her sophomore year of high school, so she probably won't get it until towards the end of junior year, but she's just happy to be getting one eventually. She's easy like that.

ETA: Tabs were $85.74.