Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

I haven't been on in a couple of days. The pain from the cracked tooth has been pretty bad over the weekend, but I go to the dentist this morning to start getting it fixed. I'm not sure exactly what they are going to do. Probably a temporary crown while the final one is made.

I need to do a bills update from last Friday's payday. DS is sick so homeschooling is pretty minimal so far this week. We've worked on his persuasive essay, but that's it so far. Hopefully he will be a bit better today and we can get some more done. Although I'm not sure how I'm going to be after going to the dentist. DD is finally well. She went back to school on Friday, but it took her through the weekend to beat this thing.

DH comes home around midnight tonight and won't have to fly back to work until the 31st. We still don't know if he will be working an extra week in January or not. They are hiring for a Jan/Feb ramp up and he will likely need to train people. It's going to be a crazy busy time so hopefully he'll be able to squeeze some more income out of it. It would be nice to have a little extra in the bank.

With whatever the tax situation is going to be for 2013 still up in the air that would go part of the way towards covering any loss due to higher taxes. Although without the credit card payments we will soon no longer need to make, it won't hit us as hard as it would have if that tax thing isn't renewed. And also we could put some money in the HSA as the $2500 deductible starts over again in January.

Since we will be fully deducting the HSA this year and we did last year, I really want to start building it up again. I don't forsee any huge medical things next year, but I didn't this year either. If DH gets an extra week's pay, I can at the very least put the money for the deductible in the HSA and the rest into the emergency fund.

I'm still working on the second week of menues on my food stamp challenge and also a $40 menu that will provide 10 days worth of meals. I tried to make a $33 menu for just one week, and while I could do it, the variety just wasn't quite enough to make me happy. That extra seven dollars really opens things up, while still keeping to the idea of $4 a day average. It will also be food that you can make in a microwave and with an electric burner, in keeping with the idea that not everyone has a regular stove to work with.

I have some thoughts I'm trying to pull together on the foods stamps challenge. I also never posted my actual menues for this week, but so far it's sort of been chicken noodle soup and spaghetti.

I go to the doctor on Thursday. I want to get some bloodwork done, have my iron levels checked, have my thyroid checked, and my vitamin D levels and see if maybe I need to be put on a different high blood pressure medicine. Also I want to see whether or not I have diabetes. The onset in my extended family has been around age 45 on average. I've still got a few years to go, but I am exhuasted all the time lately and pretty much have been since August. I'm dizzy a lot. And I'm ridiculously thirsty. I want to see if there is an underlying cause, or if it is just a case of catching everything under the sun.

Some major prep is out of the way. Does that mean no cooking at all this week? Well, no, not completely, but your cooking time has been cut way down because you’ve done so much work on your day off. So what is going to happen during your first week? A bit of cooking, a bit of reheating, and a lot of variety and flavor in your meals. Obviously some things will be used quite a bit, like eggs, but I’ve tried to vary how they will taste based on ingredients.

Day One
Breakfast—
4 ounces of apple juice
2 Biscuits warmed up in microwave and spread with a little honey
2 eggs scrambled with 1 tbsp of your diced deli ham, salt and pepper
Water

Put out a plate. Scramble 2 eggs in a bowl with a couple shakes of salt and a couple shakes of pepper. Put a little oil in a small frying pan, being sure to lightly coat the bottom. You want to be able to tell the pan is coated, but not have your eggs swimming in it. Heat the pan to medium and drop in your frozen tbsp of deli ham. Using a coated spoon break apart the ham as it cooks and once the ham is warmed through, about 1 to 2 minutes, pour your eggs on top and lightly scramble until done. The eggs will no longer look wet or shiny. Dump onto plate. (I often use the cheat method and cook stuff on high stirring rapidly until done, which is faster, but for the beginner cook could lead to burning due to lack of constant attention and on this budget, you can’t afford to burn your food).

Lunch—
Chicken sandwich
Orange
Water in a reusable water bottle

Take 4 ounces (or half) of the one cup of chicken you set aside the night before. Spread two slices of bread with mayo or with the sweeter salad dressing you made the night before, place chicken on one piece of bread, sprinkle with a tbsp of cheddar cheese, and add one leaf of lettuce. Place other slice on top.

Dinner—
Open-faced Meatball Sandwiches
2 cups of leftover roasted vegetables warmed up in the microwave
Water

Take 3 meatballs out of the freezer and cook in the microwave. Depending on your microwave this could take 1 to 2 minutes. Take ¼ cup of tomato sauce from the open can in the fridge and pour into a bowl. Add a few shakes of Italian seasoning and warm briefly in the microwave until sauce is no longer cold. Turn your frying pan on to medium and take the two end pieces of your first loaf of bread and put them in the pan crust side down. It should be lightly warmed after about 30 seconds. Turn it over so the cut side is down and toast for about a minute. Put onto your plate and spread with the tomato sauce. You will probably not use the whole amount of sauce, so if you do not, cover what is left in the bowl and return to fridge. Cut hot meatballs in half and put three halves on each slice of bread.

Before you go to bed take one slice of meatloaf out of the freezer to thaw for the next day. Take out one of your four containers of pulled pork as well.

Day 2
Breakfast—
2 pancakes warmed in the microwave and scraped with a little butter and sprinkled with powdered sugar
2 eggs scrambled with 1 tbsp of finely diced onion (from the fridge) and 1 tbsp of diced bell peppers
4 ounces of milk
Water

Lunch—
Meatloaf sandwich
Apple
Water

I personally prefer my meatloaf sandwich without any sauce, I feel it is flavorful enough, but you could put a bit of ketchup on or some mayo. If you can warm the sandwich up at work, I think that makes the sandwich better.

Dinner—
2 pulled pork burritos
2 cups of leftover roasted vegetables
Small salad made with 2 lettuce leaves, your homemade salad dressing, and a bit of mozzarella cheese.
Water

Take 4 ounces (or half) of the pulled pork and place it on 2 tortillas. Add 1 tbsp of cheddar cheese to each. Roll them into burritos and place seam side down on a plate. Microwave until pork is hot and cheese has melted.

Before going to bed hard-boil 4 eggs. (Place in a pot with enough cold water to cover, heat on high, bring to a boil and let boil for 10 minutes. Cool eggs in cold water for 5 minutes and then peel. Put in covered container in the fridge. It is important to start your eggs in cold water. Cold eggs put into hot water are more likely to crack and spew egg white into the pan. Also take a small handful of pepperoni out of the freezer to thaw for the next day.

Day 3
Breakfast—
Orange
2 Biscuits and sausage gravy
1 hard-boiled egg

Warm up your biscuits in the microwave. Take 1 tbsp of sausage fat from your container in the fridge and put into frying pan. Melt the fat on medium high. Take 1 tbsp of flour and mix it into 4 ounces of milk. Stir until blended and then pour into hot fat. Stir and turn up the heat to high. Bring to a boil and then bring heat down to medium. Cook for about ten minutes or until gravy no longer tastes floury. You may need to add a bit of cold water if gravy is too thick.

Lunch—
Chicken salad
Honey bread
Water

Spread honey on two slices of bread and put together to prevent honey from sticking to the wrapping. For your chicken salad you will take the remaining half cup from your container of shredded chicken and put it over 2 shredded lettuce leaves. Cut up 1 hardboiled egg and put it on top. Sprinkle on a bit of salt and a very tiny amount of pepper. Add 1 tbsp of shredded parmesan cheese. There is enough flavor in this to not really need a dressing, but you can add it if you like.

Dinner—
Homemade pizza

Put your oven rack on the middle spot. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Take your pizza dough out. Lightly oil the dough and your hands to prevent sticking. Place dough on your pizza pan or your cookie sheet. Press the dough out until it is approximately 12 inches in diameter. Take your open can of tomato sauce from the fridge and spread ¼ cup on the pizza dough. If you have any sauce left from meatball sandwich night add it to the dough. Sprinkle the sauce with Italian herbs. Spread one cup of mozzarella cheese over the pizza. Cover with pepperoni. Add ¼ cup of diced onion and 1/3 of your bell pepper strips. When the oven is hot turn it down to 425 and place pizza inside.

A 12 inch pizza will need to be baked for about 20 minutes, but it all depends on your oven. The best way to check if the crust is done is to lift it with a flipper and thunk it in the center with a spoon. If it doesn’t thunk it is still too doughy and needs to be cooked for longer. Trust your nose. If it starts to smell like it is done before the 20 minutes, check it. Whatever you do, you can’t let it burn because it is going to provide four meals for you.

When pizza is done cut it up into 8 slices. 2 of these are for dinner. Once cooled freeze four slices for next week. Put other 2 slices in the fridge.

Day 4
Breakfast—
Sausage and onion omelet
2 pancakes warmed in the microwave and scraped with butter and powdered sugar
Water

I can see the panic already. She wants me to make an omelet? But—but—but… It’s really not as hard as they make it out to be on television. The most important step is to have all of your ingredients ready. You need one tbsp. of sausage from the freezer, 1 tbsp of finely diced onion from the fridge, Italian herbs, butter and 1 tbsp cheddar cheese. Whisk 2 eggs with salt and pepper and sprinkle in some Italian herbs. Melt a bit of butter into the pan on medium high then turn it down to medium. Throw in the sausage and onion. Cook for about 2 minutes.

Remove sausage and onion to a plate. You may need to add a bit more butter to the pan. You don’t want your omelet sticking or it will end up more like scrambled eggs again. Once the butter is melted pour your eggs in. Then watch it. It will take a few minutes to cook, about 3 or 4. Again it depends on your range.

Do not be tempted to turn up the heat, though you may place a lid on for the last 30 seconds or so. The goal is for the omelet not to look wet or shiny. When it gets to that point, dump your sausage, onion, and cheese onto one half of the omelet. Put your turner on the edge of the circle and fold it in half. Slide the omelet out of the pan and onto your plate. Even if it is slightly browned because you left it a little too long, it is still good eating. Yellow with a few brown spots is good. Totally brown, not so much. Now wasn’t that easy?

Lunch—
2 pulled pork burritos
Apple
Water

Dinner—
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Garlic Bread
Small salad
Water

Just a very simple salad tonight. 2 leaves torn up, sprinkle with a little mozzarella cheese, oil and salt. Do this at the start of dinner prep and keep in the fridge.

I did not specify in my shopping list what type of spaghetti I bought. It comes down to personal preference. I find that regular old spaghetti is much hardier a noddle than angel hair. I find it more filling. But angel hair has the benefit of being very quick to cook. I don’t like my pasta al dente, I like it limp but not mushy. So for me, angel hair takes 10 minutes to cook after the water comes to a boil and spaghetti takes about 25. Cook times for al dente pasta are shorter and should be listed on the package directions. So if time is one of your problems, then angel hair is the way to go. Either way, make sure you use plenty of water to boil it in. For this challenge I am going to assume we are using angel hair.

You are going to make 8 ounces of pasta or half of a one pound package. This should provide 2 meals for you. To begin, smash (Press down hard with the side of your knife. This helps the illness fighting stuff in garlic to do its job.) 4 cloves of garlic and mince it finely. Make sure you put your garlic skins in the bag in the freezer. Put your water on to boil using the directions on your package. Salt the water (1 tsp) and put in a dab of oil to help prevent sticking. Open a can of tomato sauce. Put some oil in your skillet and sauté your garlic on medium heat for a minute. Remove 2 cloves worth of garlic and pour the rest of your finely diced onions from the fridge in with the garlic remaining in your pan. Sauté onion for five minutes. Pour in tomato sauce and stir. Add several shakes of Italian herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

Put the garlic you took out into a microwave safe bowl (preferably one with a lid). Add half a stick of butter and partially melt in microwave. You want it to be soft, but not liquid. Maybe 15 to 30 seconds. Just check it and you should be able to push through it. Remove from microwave. Stir the spaghetti sauce. Stir garlic into softened butter. Stir tomato sauce again. Taste and adjust salt, pepper, or herbs to taste. Spaghetti should be done about now, so drain it when the timer goes off. Put two pieces of bread into toaster. Warm up three meatballs from the freezer in the microwave. Spread toasted bread with garlic butter. Cover garlic butter, preferably with a lid so it doesn’t permeate the fridge, and put it in the fridge.

You will only be eating one piece of bread with your spaghetti and meatballs. Leave the other one to cool on the counter until after dinner. Divide the noodles in half and place into bowls, one to eat from and one to cool. Spoon 1/3 of the tomato sauce onto your spaghetti. Eat.

After dinner, cut your second piece of garlic bread into cubes. Put your sauce and your spaghetti into the fridge (separately, they warm up better when the pasta hasn’t been soaked in sauce). Place in a baggy and put in the fridge. Remove one container of chicken, 1 tbsp of diced ham, and one slice of meatloaf from the freezer and place in the fridge to thaw.

Day 5
Breakfast—
2 hard-boiled eggs
2 biscuits sprinkled with Italian herbs and with cheddar cheese melted on top
4 oz of apple juice
Water

Lunch—
2 slices of leftover pizza
Orange
Water

Dinner—
Last 2 cups of roasted potatoes, onions, and carrots
4 ounces of chicken mixed with half or your remaining spaghetti sauce and warmed in the microwave
Small salad consisting of two lettuce leaves, a bit of oil, and the cubed garlic bread from the night before.
Water

Take beef pot roast out of the freezer and put into the fridge to thaw. This will be put in the crockpot on Day 8

Day 6 (I am assuming this is a day off. If it is not, make the lunchtime quesadilla before going to work. It only takes a few minutes.
Breakfast—
Easy fried eggs and toast
4 oz of apple juice
Water

Take two slices of bread and cut out a round circle in each one. You can use a tuna can or a biscuit cutter or even a glass to do this. Melt some butter in a skillet over medium heat and put your bread on it, including the two cut out pieces. Carefully crack an egg into each hole in the bread. Salt and pepper the egg. Cook for two minutes, or until the egg white has turned white, and then carefully flip over eggs and bread as well as the two cut out circles of bread. Cook for another minute. Remove to a plate. Break yolk of each egg and dip circles into yolk. This is a great method for cooking fried eggs for the first time. It makes it almost impossible to crack the yolk when flipping. If you have a wider flipper, I’d use that over a narrow one. Oh, and if you don’t like runny egg yolk, you can always break the yolk on purpose right after you crack it into the bread hole. Cooking time remains the same.

Lunch
Chicken quesadilla
Ham salad

For the quesadilla, there is the easy way, and the slightly harder way. Put down one tortilla on a plate and take the remaining 4 ounces of chicken from the fridge. Spread it over the tortilla evenly and then do the same with a little cheddar cheese and a little mozzarella cheese. Put second tortilla on top and cook in the microwave for one minute. Cut into triangles. This tastes good cold, but even better warm. The slightly harder way, heat a large frying pan on medium high heat and put in one tortilla. Spread the chicken and cheese on top and put on the other tortilla. Cook for two minutes. Turn it over and cook for one more minute. Remove from pan and cut into triangles.

For the salad tear up two lettuce leaves and sprinkle 1 tbsp of deli ham and 1 tbsp of cheddar cheese on top. Add a little mayo and some pepper.


Dinner—
Leftover spaghetti with sauce
One slice of meatloaf with ketchup
Apple
Water

Remove baggy of chicken bones and baggy of vegetable peels and celery leaves from the freezer and dump into the crockpot. Return these bags to the freezer as you will be filling them again. Clean and roughly chop 2 carrots. Take an onion, wash it, and cut off the ends. Throw them in the pot. Roughly chop the onion into eight pieces. Add them to the pot. Smash four cloves of garlic and add them to the pot. Add 1 tbsp of salt and 1 tsp of pepper. Fill the crockpot to the top with water. Turn it on to low and allow it to cook all night long. You will deal with it tomorrow after breakfast. Remove a container of chicken from the freezer.

Since this is a day off (hopefully) we are going to make something very simple. Syrup. The ingredients? One cup of regular white sugar and one cup of water. Combine them in a sauce pan. If you happen to have maple flavoring or extract, or vanilla flavoring or extract on hand, add 1 tsp. The sugar alone is sweet enough, but the other will make it taste slightly more like pancake syrup, but since that was not something bought on my grocery list for the food stamp challenge it is not a needed ingredient. Heat on high, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved. Bring it to a boil and then immediately turn off the heat and allow it to cool. Pour it into a jar and refrigerate. It makes 1 ½ cups of syrup and will keep for a month. Remove frozen loaf of bread from freezer and place in fridge to thaw.

Day 7 (Assuming this is a day off as well, for making the soup it needs to be on a day off, so adjust accordingly)

Breakfast—
2 pancakes warmed up in the microwave with 4 tbsp of syrup
2 plain scrambled eggs
4 oz of milk
Water

After breakfast get out two carrots, two stalks of celery, and your large diced onion from earlier in the week. Peel and trim and put those into the freezer baggy. Cut the carrot into ¼ inch rounds and cut the larger end rounds in half. Slice the celery in half longwise, and then cut those two pieces in ¼ inch pieces. Place a colander into a large cooking pot and drain the crockpot contents into it. Once all the broth is in your big pot set it aside. Clean out your crockpot. Put half of your broth back into the crockpot. Put a lid on the other pot of broth and set it aside to cool for an hour. Put celery, onion, and carrots into the crockpot, set it on low and cook for 4 hours or until vegetables are soft. Break four ounces of spaghetti into thirds. Add to the crockpot. Also add 4 ounces of chicken from your container. Cook for another half an hour. You may have to add more salt and pepper to adjust for your tastes. I usually use garlic powder as well, but again, it wasn’t on the challenge shopping list. If you happen to have it, I’d add 1 tbsp. But you can definitely get a good flavor out of it by adjusting the pepper.

Once broth has cooled for an hour, pour into one cup containers and freeze. You can ladle off the fat before doing this if you choose. You will have 4 servings of chicken noodle soup. One is for lunch, the rest for the fridge.

Lunch—
Chicken noodle soup
Homemade garlic bread

Dinner—
Baked potato with cheese
Orange
Chicken sandwich made with remaining 4 ounces of chicken, 1 leaf of lettuce and garlic butter

By now you are likely out of salad dressing. We will need to make a larger batch this time. ½ cup of mayo, ½ cup of oil, and 2 tbsp of honey. Stir until mixed. Cut your first purple cabbage in half. Wrap one half tightly and put back in the fridge. Shred the other half. Clean and peel two carrots, putting the peels into your freezer baggy. Shred the carrots and mix with the cabbage. Set aside enough of your dressing for sandwiches for the week and mix the rest into your coleslaw. Refrigerate. Take out 2 slices of pizza to thaw for lunch on Day 8. Week one is over. Pat yourself on the back. You made it through.

I stopped by the grocery store with DS today because soup was 10/$10 on a one day sale. It's been running $1.79 a can lately, and with DD being so sick, she needed something that would go down easy without killing her throat every time she swallows. We were also out of crackers. So I sent DS down the cracker aisle, which is next to the soup aisle.

He comes back a minute later with the big box we normally get that has eight sleeves of crackers and he goes, "Um, Mum (he's been speaking in a British accent lately), how many sleeves of crackers are in the big box?"

"Eight."

"And how many are in the small boxes?"

"Four."

"Well, the little boxes are on 2/$5 and the big box is $5.69. We should get the little boxes."

I was so proud. When I sent him back to get the small boxes, I was beaming. I compare prices all the time in front of the kids. You hope this stuff rubs off, but you never entirely know until moments like this happen.

I was reconciling my savings accounts spreadsheet with the bank statements I received in the mail today and I realized that there was $252.01 that was not allocated to any category at ING. Not sure what I did there. I might have paid something out of the holding tank without actually taking it out and just using checking, but I took it off the spreadsheet. That's happened a couple of times. Regardless, I added it to the emergency fund category, so the EF now sits at $1457.42. Almost to the $1500 mark. I think I can get it there by the end of the year.

I received the propane bill for the old house today. The thermostat is set on 60 so that the pipes do not freeze. It is $159.65. That is quite a lot less than I was anticipating. I have $400 allocated for propane in the holding tank right now. So I will pay that and then leave the rest of the money ($240.35) in there and just not transfer any more money to the holding tank for propane until after the next quarterly bill comes. I can use that $100 a month elsewhere during that time.

Tomorrow is payday. I still have $297.82 in checking and $25 in cash. I added $6.48 to the coin jar. I really like this new habit of getting to the next payday with more than $5 left.

I've been saving my allowance since I started drawing one again. I have $154. I haven't decided what to do with it. Maybe I'll save it for Disneyland. I like to buy a sweatshirt or light jacket, a couple of t-shirts, and one of the Splash Mountain towels when I go and they are a bit expensive, so having the extra saved for that would be a good idea. They are so well made that they last for years. In fact I can still wear the Disneyland sweatshirt I bought in 1995 on my honeymoon and it looks great. None of the stitching has come out or anything. So I feel like they are a good investment.

DS's Christmas presents arrived today so he is all taken care of. I need to get on the ball and order DD's presents now that I have her list. I procrastinated last year and a couple of her presents didn't show up until a week after Christmas. 5 more days until DH comes home. It's been a long hitch and I will be glad to have him home.

Planning on Paper Only for the Food Stamp Challenge. Can one person make and eat a decent variety of fresh, nutritious food on the $133.26 monthly food stamp allotment?

I’m going to make a couple of assumptions here. I am going to assume that people have a microwave, a stove top/oven, a crock pot, and a fridge with a freezer. I am also going to assume you have a couple of frying pans and a big pot for boiling water and at least one cookie sheet. I am also assuming that people have baggies or containers. Mark every bag with its contents. Once stuff is frozen it can look remarkably similar. Oh, and wear your shoes, with a flat sole, while cooking and prepping. It will save your back.

I do have many methods for using alternative cooking sources, but that will most definitely be in another post, because it requires a completely different plan, but it can be done. I remember doing it when DH and I were a lot younger and poorer, and our stove went out and it was a few months before we could afford a new one.

Remember to wash your hands with soap before starting to cook. Wash your hands any time you are going from raw meat or eggs to something else. Wash them between dealing with different types of meat. Do not use the same spoons for raw meat or eggs as for cooked. You do not want to cross contaminate anything.

So, we are starting with the groceries listed in this post:

http://luckyrobin.savingadvice.com/2012/12/04/about-the-food...

The first thing I would do would be to put away all of the food in the fridge, freezer, or my canisters. If I were a single person, and part of the working poor, I’d have done my shopping on a day off, in the morning, so that this day off would also be the day I did a lot of my meal prep on. Otherwise shop at night on the day before your day off so you’ll have plenty of time for prep the next day. So first things first, I had to calculate my ingredients to know what I could make from it, because when you don’t have extra on hand, you must be exacting in your recipes.

20 cups 10 pound bag of flour
8 cups 1/2 gallon of milk
8 cups 1/2 gallon of milk
8 cups 1/2 gallon of apple juice
8 cups 1/2 gallon of apple juice
60 tsp 10 oz can of baking powder
32 oz 2 pounds of spaghetti
8 cups 4 cans of tomato sauce
48 eggs 4 dozen eggs
32 TBSP 1 pound butter

I seperated the two half gallons of milk and the two half gallons of apple juice since they are in separate containers. That is why each item is listed twice. I figured out that from my 20 cups of flour I could make one batch of pizza dough (two medium pizzas with 8 slices per pizza), 4 loaves of bread, 24 biscuits, and 24 pancakes. That takes 19 ½ cups of flour and leaves me with 1/2 cup, which is 8 TBSP of flour left. You will be using these TBSP for gravy later on.

Okay, so with those figures clearly in mind I would start my bread dough, because it takes the most time. Normally I use my bread machine to mix the dough and let it do its first rise and second knead in there. I have seen bread machines at Goodwill for $5. If you do not have a bread machine, you can use a food processor or a stand mixer. If you have neither of those, then you have the old-fashioned method of mixing it together with your hands.

You will be making two loaves of bread and freezing one. You will use the second bread recipe in this post: http://luckyrobin.savingadvice.com/2012/08/13/bread-recipes_... If doing it by hand, mix ingredients together to form a dough and knead for five minutes. Place towel over your bowl and put it in a warm place and let it rise. If your home is cold you can boil some water in the microwave and then take it out and put the dough in there to rise or you can put your oven on its lowest setting and let the bread rise in there. You will check on it in an hour and a half

Preheat your oven to 450 and get out a new bowl for making biscuits. Use this recipe http://breadbaking.about.com/od/biscuits/r/easydropbisc.htm except you will be using butter instead of shortening and adding an egg per batch. Double the recipe. Drop 12 spoonfuls of biscuit onto a cookie sheet. When oven is hot, put them in. If you have a second cookie sheet put the remaining 12 biscuits on it and start mixing your pancake batter. You will be doing a triple batch of pancake batter using this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/good-old-fashioned-pancakes/

Now I happen to have an electric griddle that makes pancake making a lot easier. I can do six 1/4 cup pancakes at a time on it. But even if you only have a griddle pan or a large skillet, you should be able to do 3 pancakes at a time. On the griddle I’d cook it at 325. On the stove I’d do it on medium (recipe says medium high, but I have a gas stove and I’d be taking no chances with only limited ingredients). Pancakes should cook for about 2 minutes on the first side. There will be lots of bubbles on the surface and the edges will start looking solid and shiny. Flip them over and cook for one to two minutes. Place on cooling rack. Get second batch of pancakes going. Biscuits should be done about now. If you have a second cookie sheet, put them in. If you did not, allow biscuits to cool for a couple of minutes before removing them to a plate. Scrape any residue off the cookie sheet with your turner. Check your pancakes and flip if ready. Drop next 12 biscuits onto cookie sheet and put into oven. Finish off your batches of pancakes, removing and cooling biscuits when ready. Turn off the oven.

If you do not have a cooling rack you can place your pancakes on wax paper to cool. Or plates in a pinch. You are going to be freezing these, so you don’t want them to get sweaty like they would if you stacked them hot. After a half an hour they will be cool enough to stack and put in a baggy in the freezer. You will now have used 5 ¾ cups of milk and 5 eggs. When you measure your milk to start with, take one cup out of one half gallon and then close up the container and put it in the freezer, in the back where you cannot knock it over. Then take the remaining amount of needed milk for the recipes from the other container.

Clean out your mixing bowls. It should about be time to check on your bread dough. If dough has about doubled inside it is time to punch it down and then knead it for five minutes. I knead the bread right there in the bowl. If dough is sticky I would very lightly use a bit of cooking oil on my hands (there is no extra flour to waste). Lightly oil the bread pans (you can use a bit of butter if you want, I normally do, but with butter limited and oil more available I’d use the oil). Divide the dough in half and form into loaves. Place in your bread pans and cover with a towel. Place next to stove or on top of the stove to get the residual heat to help with the second rise.

Mix your pizza dough using this recipe: http://luckyrobin.savingadvice.com/2011/03/14/pizza-dough-re... Warm up the microwave again by boiling hot water and then slip the dough inside with a towel over it. This dough only needs one rise. It should more or less be done about the time the bread dough has risen just above the top in its pans.

Get out your crockpot and put in your 2 pound pork butt roast. Combine your can of tomatoes and green chiles with 1 TBSP of chili powder. If you have a blender, give them a whirl, otherwise just stir. Pour over pork. Cook on low for 8 hours. Go and take a break until your bread dough is done rising. Check on your bread after it has risen for an hour. Preheat your oven to 375 and follow the instructions in the recipe for baking the bread.

Be careful not to bump the pans hard or slam the oven door as this can make your bread fall. Also do not walk too heavily or jump up and down in the kitchen. While fallen loaves cook up just fine, they will be smaller in volume. Because there is no extra flour, you want the volume to be as large as possible.

Once the bread is in the oven it is time prep some carrots and potatoes. Wash, peel and/or trim 4 carrots, 2 onions, 1 stalk of celery, and 3 potatoes. Save the peels from the carrots and onions, any parts you cut off the celery, and the top and bottom of the onions, and put them in a ziptop baggy and freeze. Shred one carrot into a bowl. Finely dice the celery and add it to bowl of carrot shreds. Set aside in the fridge. Cut one onion into bite-sized chunks and set aside, covered, in the fridge. Do not leave off the cover unless you want your whole fridge to smell like onions.

Cut remaining carrots, onion, and potatoes into one inch chunks and put into the bottom of your roasting pan. If you do not have a roasting pan you can use a cake pan (you will just set the chicken directly on top of the veggies). Place the carrots and potatoes into the pan and pour on two cups of water. Lightly salt. Take out one of your chickens. Freeze the other. Take out the packet of organ meats with the neck, if there is one. I don’t eat organ meats, but I know some people do, so if you do, do whatever you do with them. I feed them to the neighbor cat. I take out the neck, wash it, and place it in the water with the vegetables. Then I put the roasting rack over it. I then wash the chicken inside and with warm water, and reach inside to make sure there are no organs that have been missed, like the kidneys. I lightly rub about 1 tbsp of cooking oil all over the chicken and then sprinkle it with salt, pepper, and Italian herbs.

The bread should be done about now, so when the timer goes off, remove it from the oven and take it out of the loaf pans and set on a cooling rack. Slip the chicken into the oven, turning the heat down to 350 and setting it for 2 hours. Your pizza dough should have risen, so lightly coat your hands with cooking oil, punch down and divide it in half. Freeze half and put the other half into the fridge for use later in the week in a tightly covered bowl or a ziptop baggy. Crumble and fry your sausage. Using a slotted spoon, spoon sausage into a bowl and then carefully pour the sausage fat into a jar. Cool the fat. Cover and refrigerate. Cool the sausage until cold. Your biscuits should be cold now so put them into two gallon size freezer bags and freeze.

While the sausage is cooling, get out one pound of hamburger. Smash 4 cloves of garlic. Mince. Put the garlic skins or any bits you cut off, like the stem end, into the baggy in the freezer with the onion and carrot peels. In a large bowl, mix half of your diced onion and your garlic together. Shred one ounce of parmesan and a quarter cup of cheddar into your bowl. (You will be shredding your cheese as you need it, because it is less likely to mold in block form then in shreds). Add 2 eggs and stir well. Add the hamburger and mix with your hands. Form into 15 meatballs. I normally nuke these in the microwave for 5 minutes in my Tupperware stack cooker, but they can also be cooked in a skillet over medium heat until done. Remove to a plate and cool. Your egg count is now at 7 used.

Now is the time to put your cooled sausage into a baggy and throw it in the freezer. Take your ¼ pound of deli ham and dice it. Take an ice cube tray and divide your ham into each section and freeze it. My ice cube tray makes 14 cubes. In about 2 hours you can take it out of the ice cube tray and put it in a baggy. Put with the sausage. Add the bag of pepperoni to sausage and ham.

When your meatballs are cooled through, place them on a plate and put in your freezer. Once they are frozen solid, put into a baggy and put in the freezer. 15 meatballs gives you 5 servings of 3 meatballs each.

When the chicken and vegetables are done take it out of the oven and cover for a half an hour to help the chicken maintain its juices. Tear up a couple of leaves of lettuce to make a small salad. Top with a tbsp. of cheddar cheese. Mix together ¼ cup of mayo, ¼ cup of cooking oil, and 1 tbsp of honey for a dressing. Use 2 tbsp of dressing and tightly cover what is left in your fridge. It will keep about 5 days. Serve yourself 2 cups of the vegetables for dinner along with a chicken thigh and leg. Pull the meat off the bones and start a baggy of chicken bones for the freezer.

Before taking care of the remaining chicken, wrap one loaf of bread in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and freeze. Slice the second loaf of your bread into 14 slices, making the two end pieces slightly larger (You will be using the ends in a specific recipe later in the week). Since the bread is now cool you should be able to easily get that amount. (You won’t if you try to slice it hot.) Wrap bread or put into reusable bread bag or bread box. You will have bread crumbs after slicing the bread. Wipe them or dump them into a large mixing bowl. Get out another pound of hamburger. Take your shredded carrot, finely diced celery, and the other half of your diced onion and put them in a bowl. Crack and whisk 5 eggs. Add ¼ cup of cheddar, ¼ cup of mozzarella, and 1 ounce of grated parmesan to the vegetables. Add ¼ cup of tomato sauce. Pour eggs over top and mix in. Add your hamburger and mix together. Take one of your bread pans, lightly oil it, and pour the meatloaf mixture into it. Bake at 375 for one hour.

While the meatloaf is cooking strip the remainder of your chicken off the bones. You can eat the skin if you want. Put the bones in the freezer baggy for bones. Shred the chicken up into bite sized pieces. You should have about 4 cups of chicken. Put one cup of the chicken in the fridge and freeze the remaining 3 cups. Put the leftover vegetables into the fridge. Wash everything.

Wash, peel, and cut up two more onions, one into a large dice and one into a small dice. Do the same for two carrots. Put your peels and ends into the freezer baggy for veggie peels. Cut up two pieces of celery into a large dice. Put the parts you cut off into the bag. Take the center stalks and leaves from the celery and rough cut them. Add the rough cut leaves and stalks to the freezer baggy. Return the remaining stalks to the fridge. Smash 4 cloves of garlic. Put all of these veggies into one container. Take your frozen bell pepper strips out of the freezer. Take ¼ of your strips and dice them fine. Put them into a baggy by the sausage, diced deli ham, and pepperoni. Put the remaining strips in their bag next to these.

Go and sit down until the meatloaf is done. When it is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool for about half an hour. Once cooled, cut your meatloaf into five portions. Freeze on a cookie sheet, and then transfer to a baggy and keep in the freezer. Go and find something else to do or relax until the pork roast is done. Once it is done, take two forks and shred it, mixing it well with the tomatoes and juices. Divide the pulled pork into 4 equal amounts and put into containers.

If you have any raw meat still in the fridge, put it into the freezer. Clean the meatloaf pan and the crockpot and go to bed. Or whatever. You are done for the day. I will tell you what you are going to do with everything in another post.

Well, this project of mine is taking up quite a bit of time, I sacrificed my novel writing hour to it, but it sure is a fun and interesting challenge. But now back to my real world for a change.

I have three dentist appointments scheduled for next week. DD is on Monday, I am on Tuesday, and DS is on Wednesday, but thankfully DH will be back around 12:30 a.m. on next Wednesday morning. I am finally getting my teeth fixed. Or one of them. Yesterday was just a cleaning.

But yeah, it's finally my turn for something. I was going to have it done this summer, but then DS was assaulted and given that major concussion and neck issues. The bill on that ended up being $3000 out of pocket. We may or may not see some of it come back but I doubt it. Thankfully we had the HSA and we'll be deducting the full amount there again this year.

Then I was about to get it done and DH broke a crown and cracked another one, so then he pushed in front of me, because you cannot walk around with a broken molar if you can at all afford to fix it. Well, now all those things are paid for so it's my turn. I told everyone else that they are not to injure themselves at all until after my teeth are done. Because I am seriously tired of soft foods. So far our portion is looking like $505.

Remember when I said there would be $521 left for me to do something with this month, but I wasn't sure what? I am pretty sure God was laughing at my plans. But hey, at least we have the money to pay for it and that is the important thing.

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I've been picking up a large amount of blog traffic from somewhere during the past couple of months. I'm getting over 3000 hits a day most days. Whereas I hit the 1,000,000 mark on April 19th, and that took me six years of blogging (well, five if you count the year I took off), I'm now close to hitting the 1.5 million mark and at the rate it's been building I may just do that before the end of the year. I sure wish I knew where it was all coming from, but I'm happy to have the readership. My traffic for last month was 111,670, but it had a weird spike in the middle with 30,000 some hits on one day that was just ridiculous, but even taking that away it was 80K. The month before was 52,895 and in July it was 34,577. I think before October my highest was around 38,000 and more were closer to the 30,000 mark.

I don't often think what I have to say is all that interesting or appealing to many people besides myself, unless I'm posting to a theme. Normally I just post for daily accountability, though I strive not to be boring. I mean the coin jar updates are just plain old tedious. I wander off topic quite a bit. I occasionally rant about things like cable television. I get silly and want to spend far too much money on things like Doctor Who action figures or memorabilia because I am that type of fangirl. Most of my posts don't have pictures to grab the eye.

But I am digging my way out of a hole built years ago, not giving up, taking it step by stubborn step. I am proving that it can be done even if it takes years and years. And maybe that's what people come around for. To see someone else who is working hard to get the debt put behind them. I am glad that there is some appeal to someone though. It's always nice to know it's not disappearing into the ether. That people are actually reading what I write. So thank you to all of you who have been bump, bump, bumping my stats along. I'm grateful to every reader I have.

How often do you hear this refrain in your day to day life? How many times are you guilty of using it? More often than not when I tell people that I make almost everything from scratch, I get one of two responses. The first one is, “I’d love to do that, but I don’t have time,” or simply, “I can’t do that because I don’t have the time.” The second one is, “Well, you’re a stay at home mother, of course you have the time to do it, but I have to work a job.”

For the myth that someone would love to do it, but they don’t have time, 9 times out of 10 what they are really saying is it isn’t a priority. Or they’re too tired to do it. Or it’s easier to pop a TV dinner into the microwave, which let’s face it, it is. Or they’d rather watch 3 hours of television or dink around on the internet after their 8 hour work day and 2 hour commute. It’s not that they don’t have the time. It’s that they choose not to use the time they have to make food from scratch. Which is fine. If I were stuck in traffic two hours a day, I’d probably not want to do it either. I’d want to veg out, and I’m not talking chopping broccoli. But that would be making a choice to do other things with your time, not that you truly don’t have it. If you don’t want to make it a priority, at least own it. Don’t say it’s because the time doesn’t exist.

1 time out of 10, there really are people who just cannot squeeze one more thing into a working day, who are lucky if the even remember to eat lunch or only eat it at their desk, who collapse into bed twenty minutes after making it home from work with a half-eaten drive-thru cheeseburger in one hand. Some people work massive overtime, or are salaried and work massive unpaid time. Even if this is you, there are still ways to do it. It just takes more planning.

For the myth that my life is somehow easier or full of extra time just because I do not work outside the home, I am going to give an example of my schedule on a typical day in fall/winter (spring would include gardening, summer would include gardening and canning but no school), I’ll show you what I did Tuesday. If you honestly still think that I didn’t “work” that day and that I had plenty of time to cook meals from scratch, then I challenge you to live my life for a day and then say that.

7:00 a.m. Wake up and get dressed. Look out the window and see if the car has frost on it. No frost this morning so throw last night’s load of clothes into the dryer, make sure DD actually has her lunch and drive her to school. (If frost, there would have been no laundry until 8:50 due to scraping and heating the car).

7:25 a.m. Return home. Let chickens and duck out of the coop. Fill the feeders, put out oyster shell and grit trays, check water. If water is frozen, put out fresh water. If water is not frozen, fill up waterer. Check pond. If pond is frozen, break the ice. Muck out the chicken coop and dump in the compost bin. Check for eggs.

8:00 a.m. If DS is still asleep, take a shower. If DS is awake make breakfast. Pancakes and eggs (10 minutes). Eat breakfast with DS. If DS is not awake, take a shower. DS was awake this morning. Check on Mom and make sure she’s alive and has her meds.

8:30 a.m. Send DS to get dressed and make his bed. Make my bed. Go on computer and check emails from DS’s virtual school. Check email from DH regarding daily, weekly, and monthly progress on virtual school. Check regular emails. Look at my blog and see if there were any comments.

8:50 a.m. Put laundry in the dryer and start new load. Check to see if DS is dressed and has made his bed. If not, tell him again. Look over today’s lesson plans.

9:05 a.m.: Start dough going in the bread machine.

9:07 a.m.: Start homeschooling--Math.

10:00 a.m. Put clothes in dryer. Start a load of towels.

10:10 a.m. Vocabulary

10:35 a.m. Take dough out of bread machine and place into a lightly buttered bread pan. Cover and place in warm spot to rise.

10:45 a.m. Science

11:45 a.m. Preheat oven for bread and make lunch.

11:55 a.m. Put bread into oven to bake. Eat lunch.

12:30 p.m. Pull bread out of oven and place on cooling rack.

12:40 p.m. Go for twenty minute walk with DS to get in daily exercise.

1:05 p.m. Composition

2:05 p.m. Leave to pick up DD from high school.

2:30 p.m. DS’s appointment for forward head posture correction treatment.

3:00 p.m. Put last load of laundry into the dryer. Hang up and fold with the help of the kids. Sneak some internet time.

3:45 p.m. Go to dentist for cleaning.

5:06 p.m. Check to see if all of the birds are in the chicken coop. Check to make sure water is not frozen. Check for eggs. Lock up the coop.

5:15 Make dinner (pot pies assembled and cooked last night and reheated for today). Eat dinner. Do dishes. Slice and put away the bread.

6:00 p.m. Grab DS and do History.

6:30 p.m. Make sure DD has folded the last load of laundry and put it away. Make sure DD is in the shower. Finish history.

7:00 p.m. Make sure DD is out of the shower, has made her lunch for school tomorrow, has put away the dishes and is on her way to bed. Send DS to the shower. Dream of actually maybe getting a shower of my very own. Read the blogs while the Swagbucks TV thing is running in the background. Read non-SA blogs, but get there by entering each one into the Swagbucks Search bar to collect points.

7:30 p.m. Make sure DS is out of the shower. Let him watch one half hour program on Netflix and dink around on the internet.

8:00 p.m. DS goes to bed.

8:05 p.m. Shower! And wash my hair.

8:20 p.m. Look at virtual school and see if there is any advanced prep for the next day. Check over the next day’s math lesson and make sure it’s not going to kill me. If not then go to my LJ and read my F-List.

9:00 p.m. Write for one hour on my novel.

10:00 p.m. Work on blog post for the next day. Start figuring out menu plans for the on paper only food stamp challenge.

10:50 p.m. Check my emails.

11:00 p.m. Go to sleep.

There would have been an extra hour for food prep if I hadn’t had to go to the dentist today. That’s why I did it last night.

Now I can sneak a little bit of internet time here and there sometimes while DS is reading to himself throughout the day, but it’s a pretty hands-on curriculum as far as DS is concerned. Because he is a kinesthetic and auditory learner he needs more help than if he were just a visual learner. Some days we get through things a lot faster. Some days we don’t. Today was a longer day.

So my day is just as busy as anyone else’s day, pretty equivalent to a working parent’s day since I am teaching as well as parenting and running the household, yet I still find the time to make my meals from scratch, to bake my own bread, to get in a smidge of exercise. What you won’t see on my schedule is TV watching. I do watch a few shows on the internet, but mostly not during the week (except Big Bang Theory), because if there really is one thing I don’t have time for, it’s the brain suck that is TV. If I do watch during the week I am working on my knitting at the same time.

I will cover ways in which to make cooking from scratch fit into life a bit more easily through multi-tasking and advanced prep in another post. I think this one is long enough.

Mrs. Frugalista was talking about how the mayor of Newark, NJ was going to try to live on a food stamp grocery budget of $4 a day for a week. That got me wondering what I could buy for $133.26 a month. But then that got me to thinking, how do people receive their food stamp card?

Do they get the $133.26 put on there all at once for the whole month, or do they get it put on a week at a time? Because only having $33 a week to work with is a far cry from having $133.26 all at once to work with. If it's the full amount at once, I can do it with a decent amount of variety and healthiness. But if it's only a weekly benefit, than it would be much harder to do it with variety and healthiness in your diet. If that is so, I will have to rethink it all.

Anyway, I sat down with the grocery flyers last night. I chose the three that were within easy walking distance and that also happen to be on city bus routes, because I'm assuming that if someone was on food stamps, they might not be able to just drive to any grocery store in the city they wanted to go to. I also used the one store's online prices for their grocery store's internet shopping service. You can actually pick out what you want online and they would gather all those things together and have it waiting for you at whatever time you gave them. The price tool from that is very handy.

I also took a wander around one of the stores this morning after picking up some OJ, checking out the marked down for quick sale meats, in which they had two whole chickens. And checked the prices and sizes of the other meats. Then I looked at the bulk bins and the cheeses.

So from all of that I made up a list of what I could buy for the full monthly benefit of $133.26. The only thing I was assuming was on hand is salt and pepper.

$11.29 2 whole chickens
$5.04 1 2 pound pork butt roast
$8.29 1 2 pound beef chuck roast
$7.50 3 pounds of ground beef
$7.96 4 dozen eggs
$2.59 1 pound of butter
$6.40 2 10 pound bags of potatoes
$2.00 5 pound bag of carrots
$5.00 5 pound bag of oranges
$3.00 5 pound bag of apples
$3.00 5 pound bag of yellow onions
$4.00 10 pound bag of flour
$0.99 1 pound of sugar bulk bins
$3.38 2 heads of purple cabbage
$2.99 1 quart jar of mayo
$2.50 1 24 oz bottle of ketchup
$1.98 2 pounds of spaghetti
$2.36 4 16 ounce cans of tomato sauce
$0.69 1 16 ounce can of diced tomatoes with green chiles
$2.38 2 packages of tortillas
$5.99 2 pounds mozzarella cheese
$1.59 1 pound bag of slivered bell peppers
$2.00 1 bunch of celery
$4.88 2 half gallons of milk
$1.29 1 head of lettuce
$2.99 1 pound cheddar cheese
$4.00 8 ounces parmesan cheese
$2.99 1 8 oz shaker of seasoned salt (like Lawry's)
$3.98 2 1/2 gallons of apple juice
$2.25 1/4 pound of honey ham from deli
$4.00 1 jar of yeast
$2.00 1/4 pound of pepperoni
$0.99 1 4 oz chili powder packet
$2.99 1 quart of cooking oil
$0.25 1 head of garlic
$0.99 4 ounces of mixed Italian herbs from bulk bin
$1.50 Baking powder
$0.99 1 pound powdered sugar
$2.50 1 pound ground sausage
$4.00 12 ounces of bulk honey
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$132.53 Total

So there is a decent amount of variety, I think. Not as much as there would have been on even $50 more. I couldn't even think about things like fresh fish, canned tuna, and peanut butter. As it was I had to put things back on the imaginary shelf to keep the cheeses, butter, the herbs and spices and the honey. Since all of those things are so important for flavor, I felt I needed them to keep things from being bland. And I couldn't get as many tortillas, tomato sauce, milk, or eggs as I wanted. If the butter hadn't been on sale, I wouldn't have had it on the list.

I am now in the process of making up menu plans to see what I'd actually be able to eat on a daily basis. Also, I have to take into account that the lettuce must be eaten within the first ten days and then I'd move to the cabbage which will last much longer. I'd also have to take a cup out of one of the containers of milk and then freeze the rest of it for weeks three and four. I had to figure out which meat to freeze and which to cook up and then portion out and freeze or prepare for meals.

I also know how long it takes me to go through a 10 pound bag of flour as I do that every month. I can make 2 extra large pizzas, 4 loaves of bread, a few batches of pancakes and a couple batches of biscuits. Since for just myself I would only need enough dough to make 1 extra large pizza (or 2 medium ones) I could make more bread, pancakes, or biscuits than usual.

Anyway, menues will be forthcoming as I figure them out. This is an imaginary exercise. I am not really doing it. Or rather, I am only doing it on paper.

I took DS back to the podiatrist today. After a week on antibiotics and soaking his toes in epsom salts, then pouring on hydrogen peroxide and then using Neosporin, the swelling and infection had gone down enough for the doctor to get in there and clip the jagged edges without having to resort to lidocaine and surgery. So that saved us a couple hundred dollars. I am so glad that he didn't need to go the full route. I know from personal experience how painful that is.

The doctor cleaned up the sites and packed them with cotton again, which will work it's way out over the next two weeks. We shouldn't have to go back unless things get worse again. He is to continue on the antibiotic now, but doesn't have to do that rest of the regimen anymore. Hopefully it'll be smooth sailing for DS for a while. He sure could use a break.

I bought a few things at the grocery store today. I can't find what I did with the sales slip. It might have blown out of the bag. It was pretty windy. But judging from the cash I have left, I spent about $40, which jives with what I bought. I picked up some organic frozen dinners to have on hand.

Meal planning is all well and good, but there are some days where I just don't feel like cooking. Even though I am more or less over the flu, I am still dragging, still sniffly, still running a low grade temp, and generally just feeling very blah-ish. I mean, I'm ten times better than I was, but I still just don't feel right. Hopefully it'll pass soon, and well before I come down with the next things.

I don't like to use frozen dinners, but they've brought in a new organic line of ethnic foods. Things like Indian, Thai, and Korean foods. Stuff that I haven't learned how to make yet. So I figure at least if we have frozen dinners it will be food that is different from what I'd be making. So far I'm sticking to the meal plan. It's really just back up.

Anyway, that's about all for today. Didn't really do anything else but homeschool.

I sat down with my December and January spreadsheets tonight. The majority of my bills for this month have been paid except for the car loan, the BoA VISA, internet, the old house phone bill, allowances, weekly physical therapy and the monthly chiropractic family plan. Water/sewer is due at month's end, but that money is already set aside in the holding tank.

With DH's extra week of work the next three paydays should net around $8600. $3000 of that will be set aside for the first two weeks in January. We will be going from December 21st to January 11th without a paycheck. I figured out what needs to be paid during that time and came up with $1963.91. Then I added $1000 for groceries and a nice cushion.

That leaves me with $5100 to pay the rest of December's bills. $1579 is for everything but the credit card. I'll need $1000 for allowances, groceries, and a nice cushion. That leaves me with $2521 to put on debt. $2000 of which has been allocated for the credit card. Depending on how things work out with the bonus, that extra $521 will go for the credit card or to the vacation fund.

Any of those nice cushion dollars that are left on January 11th will be distributed similarly, depending on the bonus.

I am feeling so much hope right now. When that credit card debt is gone, it is going to be such smooth sailing. We will really be able to start saving for our future. DH makes such a good income these last few years, but so much of it has always gone to this massive medical debt it was like living on a third of it. I'm not going to go wild or crazy, but it will be nice to loosen up a little bit and also to be contributing to the 401K again. It's like coming out of dark clouds and into the sun, like winter's chill giving way to spring.

As the days get colder I find I am in the mood for heartier fare. More of the stick to your ribs sort of meals than the lighter meals of summer or early fall. I am finding that the urge for root vegetables is strong, which is convenient, since they are now what is in season and buying in season produce is always much more frugal than not. With that in mind, and working with my freezer inventory, these are the meals I have planned for the week.

Monday--
Chicken stew (chicken, carrots, potatoes, turnips, peas, gravy)
Fresh bread
Green beans
Pears

Tuesday--
Chicken pot pies (leftover chicken stew as the filling and homemade crusts)
Broccoli
Oranges

Wednesday--
Crockpot pulled pork burritos
TJ's canned corn
Frozen blueberries
Green beans

Thursday--
Crock pot ground beef and (home canned) tomatoes
Baked potatoes
Broccoli
Frozen plums

Friday--
Baked potato soup
Fresh baked bread
Frozen raspberries and blackberries
Cole slaw

Saturday--
Ethiopian Sloppy Joes (has potatoes in it) served over homemade bread
Cole slaw
Oranges

Sunday--
Crockpot beef chuck roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green beans
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams

The paperwork for putting the Christmas Bonus (well, end of year safety bonus really) in the 401K came today. That is not what we are doing with it this year, but I kind of think it is nice that they are offering that as an option. It would sure help out people who can't contribute throughout the year or can only contribute minimally to get caught up. It also feels like a tease though. The closer we get to when it is sent out the more impatient I get about it. I just so want the credit card debt portion of our lives to be over.

DH and I have discussed what to do with the bonus in future years. DD wants to go to either the local university or a state school in Oregon and the bonus would go a long way to whether or not we can cashflow tuition. If the bonus is 5% of yearly income it would cover half a year's tuition. If it is 10% it would cover a year. Even at 5%, we would only have to save up another $7000 each year. I absolutely am opposed to getting student loans. I do not want my kids saddled with that kind of debt starting their adult lives and I refuse to take it out ourselves. I do expect them to work and help pay if jobs are available.

The other option for DD is two years at the local community college and then a transfer to the university. That would give us longer to save up for the final 3 years of college (5 year teaching degree). A full load at the community college is $3000 a semester.

When it comes to DS's turn, he will likely go to a technical college. If his interests hold true, he'd like to be involved in power generation, the operation of dams, solar power, and wind power. I know there's an engineeing program for that kind of thing, I just can't remember what it is called. It is definitely something he is passionate about. He built a water wheel that powered a lightbulb in the 5th grade.

One of the things I have been thinking about lately is whether or not my kids will be able to get jobs to help pay for college. It is super hard for teenagers to get jobs right now in our area. The fast food jobs are held by thirty and forty-somethings who had no other choices and are far more reliable than people with no work history.

If we end up moving to a place with enough land we will be raising rabbits and I think that might be a good job for them. We would, of course, raise our own meat rabbits, but then any surplus could be sold. In our county rabbit meat goes for about $15 a pound. Selling a live doe or buck is about $30 per for good parents. Rabbit manure is highly sought after for gardens because it doesn't have to be composted, so that is another sellable item. And then of course there are the pelts. It could be a nice little business. And DH says he will slaughter if they don't want to.

I think I would want to eventually establish 2 breeding lines with 2 bucks and 3 does per buck. That would be beneficial because then we could sell a buck from one line and does from the other to the same people. It is kind of hard to find that in established rabbitries around here and you don't want brother and sister rabbits breeding, so you have to look at more than one place usually to get your start up animals.

I don't know. It's all conjecture at this point. But it would give them work to do and start them off with their own business.

ING added the interest today. It's a whopping $1.47. Their interest rate is now .75% APY. I so miss the days of 4% interest. I am not liking some of the minor changes they have made to the site, either. It makes it slightly harder to navigate and the major thing I've always liked about ING is how user friendly it was. I imagine the changes will just continue as it continues to be consumed by the new owners. I just hope they don't lower the interest rates even further to match other banks. If they do, I'll have no reason to keep my money there at all.

Anyway, I added the interest to my EF.

$1205.41 Begginning Balance
____1.47 Interest Added
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$1206.88 New EF Balance

And the mortgage payment posted. We are officially under $15K. $14,948.33 to be exact. Woo Hoo!

Interest was $70.48 and the rest of the $500 went on principal. I am going to try to pay off $500 worth of principal from now on each month, so that will make each payment about $570 to do that. I just really like the idea of paying off $1000 every two months. That leaves about 2.5 years left on the loan, but I hope we will sell it before then. Or I'll just pay more once all the credit card debt is gone.

Next payday I will have $1000 to send to BoA and then the payday after that will have another $1000 to send them. And when the Christmas Bonus comes, that sucker is gone, baby!

I find that the closer I am to being out of credit card debt, the easier it is to pay the bills. It feels less and less like money slipping through my fingers and more and more like seeing the summit of the mountain and knowing it's not much further and just a little push will get me there.

I got to contribute $100 to the Emergency Fund this time, something I haven't done in a while. I also deposited the coin jar money to the EF as well, so that was an additional $97.05. The EF now sits at $1205.41. It is good to see it going up again.

I funded my funds, bringing the totals to $85 in the HoA Dues Fund, $200 in the Property Tax Fund, $400 in the Propane Fund, $400 in the Vacation Fund, $400 in the Mac Book Fund, and $200 in the Christmas Fund.

Expenditures for this paycheck were:

$1000.00 AMEX
__100.00 Chase VISA
__300.00 To Mom for her utilities
__100.00 EF
___21.98 Electricity for the Old House
___50.00 to the Holding Tank for garbage (not due 'til Feb)
__39.53 DH Life Insurance
__32.70 My Life Insurance
__59.89 Car Insurance
__45.63 Old House Insurance
__41.16 ADT Security for theOld House
_153.00 Storage
_100.00 Vacation Fund
__17.00 Dues Fund
_100.00 Property Tax Fund
_500.00 Mortgageon Old House ($376.14 plus extra to principal)
_100.00 Propane Fund
_100.00 Mac Book Fund
-------------
$2860.88

I also spent $56.20 to fill up the van. It was 3.39 per gallon. It's a little cheaper at Costco, but I really didn't want to go over there today and as long as it is no more than a 20 cent per gallon difference, I'd actually use more gas going over there and then waiting in the interminably long lines.

And I spent $230.41 on groceries. I stocked up on some things that my cupboards were bare on, mostly canned goods. I also restocked the flour stash and bought some oranges and milk. I am definitely starting to see the higher prices now. Even though I didn't buy any meat since we get it at the farm now, I still wanted to see what the current store prices are, and Holy Toledo are they high. I mean some of them are higher than their grass-fed, organic counterparts. I may need to up the grocery budget once we finish eating the inventory in the freezer. I'm trying to hang on to $600 a month, but half of that is spent at the farm.

I paid out DD's allowance for two weeks, $30. DS does not get an allowance until 12/14 as his was advanced to him so he could buy something on a really good sale. I also took out $200 in cash.

I bought DD a new MP3 player. She was willing to settle for the 4GB one, so it was $40. I used part of the $200 in cash for that. Since it was half what I was expecting it to be, I told her I'd just pay for it if she'd do some extra chores for her grandmother. So she's going to clean all of the bathrooms, mop the kitchen floor, vacuum, and clean out Mom's fridge. She's also going to do all of the laundry this weekend.

DD is going to stay after school one day next week to teach her English teacher how to knit using a loom. They're going to knit some hats for some charity and they need to make 26 between now and the 18th. Knitting goes much faster on a loom. I didn't get the details on what charity, but I think it was local. I find it kind of hilarious that my sixteen-year-old daughter is teaching a sixty-something-year-old woman to knit. It's like, shouldn't that be the other way around?

Speaking of knitting, I really need to get going and finish making DS's scarf so I can start on DD's. It's hard to work on his because he is with me so much since we homeschool him. I am trying to keep it a surprise. His sister has made him a hat in the same yarn.

I almost wiped out a pair of elderly jaywalkers tonight. I guess teenagers are not the only ones to dress all in black and take crazy chances walking after dark. If it hadn't been for the man's white hair and the woman's white shoe souls, I'd not have seen them in time to stop. And they were only 20 feet away from the well illuminated stoplight with it's cross walks.

14 days and counting until the bonus checks will be put in the mail...

Tomorrow is payday and I have $52.85 in cash left from last payday so that went into the coin jar. I will make a deposit into the emergency fund tomorrow. I'm not sure of all that is in there, but I'm thinking it's around $80. I ended up with $250 leftover in the checking account so that will get sent to AMEX along with the regular payment.

I am anxious for December to start. It's going to be a good money month for us, even without the Christmas bonus. It'll be a huge jump in our forward progress. You know that song from the Lion King that goes, "Oh, I just can't wait to be king?" Well, I've got that running through my head only it's going,

"Oh, I just can't wait to be free!
No one saying pay this.
No one saying pay that.
No more paying interest.
No more crazy bank debt.
My money's gonna work for me.
Oh, I just can't wait to be free!"

LOL, I can't help but be excited. It's been such a long, long, long road. This medical debt has been a weight so heavy on our shoulders for so long. Longer than I've been blogging actually. About nine years now, I think. Let's see, the first operation was in...the summer of 2003, so yeah, 9.5 years.

And I mean, we still will, of course, have the mortgage (which will be under $15,000 after tomorrow's payment) and the note on the mini-van, so yes, there actually is still interest being paid, but it's so much lower than the credit card debt. And it's secured debt which seems so much better than unsecured debt.

I'm not sure which way I am leaning after the credit card debt is gone. Part of me really wants to get the house paid off and own it in full. But since it'll be on the market sometime between now and summer, and hopefully it will sell, I don't know if it's really that worthwhile to pay it off. It probably makes more sense to work on paying down the car loan. I don't know. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

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We received a new tax assessment from the treasury. They've revalued the house at a lower amount, which means property taxes will go down, but also may effect how much we can get for the house when we sell.

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Today was one of those days where I was pretty sure that homeschooling was going to be the death of me. You know, it goes like a breeze when DS is feeling good, but when he's not he turns into a whine machine. Plus he's starting to get that tone in his voice, the one of an annoyed teenager. 12 and a half was about when that started happening with my daughter so I've been expecting it, but I am also trying to nip it in the bud.

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I have to get gas tomorrow. I was so hoping I'd make it to payday without filling up again and I did. The van claims I can drive 22 more miles before it is out of gas, but there is usually still a half a tank left at 0. Not that I am going to run it that low.

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I gave in and got takeaway today. Pineapple chicken, teryaki beef, noodles, rice, Mongolian beef and beef and broccoli. It was unplanned and probably not worth it. It was stress buying pure and simple. After dealing with the whine machine all day I just didn't want to cook and didn't have the energy to fight with myself over it. It was really good and it takes care of lunches tomorrow. $45.60 was the damage.

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I am on day...5, I think of being caffeine free. Hopefully I'll be able to stay off it this time. I am still really tired, but I think it's getting better. As for the health issues, the flu or whatever is going away. I am still a bit stuffy and still have a fever, but there was no dizziness today. And all of the other symptoms are gone, so crossing my luck that I'll hopefully finish this off without catching a new cold. I really would like to stay well for a while.

I went to physical therapy today, so that's $90 out. I also renewed a prescription, so that's $40. I didn't actually need to renew the prescription, it's only an occasional medicine, but if I renewed it today I could then renew it again at the end of December. Since January starts the medical deductible over again, I figured I wanted to get some on hand for later when it was $40. Without the deductible it's $119. Two months worth should do me for all of next year.

There's another drug I want to do that with before my doctor retires at the end of the year, but it doesn't have any refills left so I will have to call the doctor and have him refill it. It is $160 when the deductible has not been met, but $40 when it has. It is one for muscle spasms and tremors. I do have a full bottle of them, but I'd like another on hand.

Right now the tremors seem to be under control and I haven't used the medicine since July, but with our big Disney trip coming up in March I want to make sure I have it, because with all the walking we will be doing I will have muscle spasms and tremors. I'd like to be prepared for that. Even if I rent a scooter while at the park there is still the walking from the hotel, etc. I am hoping to get by with not renting a scooter though. I will take my cane so I have it if I need it. I just hope I don't need it. It's been months since I've needed it.

I have got to remember to call PeaceHealth and see about finding a new doctor before I get seriously sick again. I've got the names from Aetna that are preferred providers, but I have to see who is accepting new patients. I want a female doctor this time. At my age, I feel a little uncomfortable to be dealing with male doctors who are so young I'm getting a Doogie Houser vibe off them.

The doctor I had for my knee surgery was young, male, and very disrespectful, and the one guy I saw who referred me to Virginia Mason for the other surgery had an office staff that was so incompetent it made me cringe, so it's kind of made me not want to deal with young male doctors at all. I suppose it is biased thinking, but so what? I get to choose who I am comfortable taking off my clothes in front of, and it's not going to be some rude, wet-behind-the-ears type.

I do need to get established with someone soon though, so I can continue with my maintenance medications. I also should ask my current doctor if I can have my medical file. I'd like to have it for a lot of reasons and if he's retiring there is no point in him keeping it. I just really wish he weren't retiring. But he's 81 so I can't begrudge it. Well, I can, but I won't. It's just hard going from someone you have trusted for literally your entire life, who helped bring you into the world, to a stranger. Not fond of change, me. But I'm going to have to get over it.

I'm going to put on my serious hat and talk about an advertisement that I watched today that made me feel like something is really wrong with our priorities today in this country. Now I don't watch a lot of television programming because I don't have cable service by choice, but I do pick up a couple of shows on the internet and of course those do have commercials, usually the same ones repeated ad nauseum. (Ha, that's a pun!)

The one I saw today I only needed to see one time for it to make a distinct impression on me, one that I think will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. Of course, that's exactly what the goal of commercials are, to stay with you, to make you want to buy things. But in this case that impression was extremely negative. I mean, negative on a level that was almost visceral.

The commercial was for the Dodge Big Finish Event. The words that made me go from general eye-rolling at buying a car for Christmas being over the top in the first place, to complete disdain were: "Let's see the neighbors compete with that."

I repeat: "Let's see the neighbors compete with that."

We are in the worst, yet still unacknowledged, depression this country has seen in my generation's lifetime. People are worried about having enough money to put food on the table and scraping together what they can to buy meager Christmas presents. People are worried about keeping their jobs. People are worried about what to do now that their homes have been destroyed in a storm so violent some people are still without power because the infrastructure was completely destroyed.

And Dodge has the audacity to want people to buy a new car for Christmas. Not, perhaps, because you need one. Not because your current one was flooded out and you need to replace it. But because if you buy one of their cars, you'll somehow be better than your neighbors. You'll keep ahead of the Joneses. Maybe someone forgot to send Dodge the memo that the Jonses are on unemployment and so are the Smiths.

Christmas is about the Christ child being born into humble circumstances. It is, even for non-believers, a time of generating peace on Earth and good will towards your neighbors. It's about giving a hand to those in need. It is for showing brotherly love not unbrotherly hubris. It is not about one-upmanship. It is not about trying to make yourself better than others because of your purchases. It is not about worshipping at the altar of rampant consumerism. At least it shouldn't be.

I'm sorry, Dodge, but not only did you miss the boat on this one, you're not even in the right ocean.

I really don't like these shorter days. Getting up in the dark to take DD to school is not my favorite thing to do. Some kids have to walk to school in the dark and of course being the sensible and responsible teenagers that they are wear all dark colors and cross in the middle of the street. Ditto riding their bikes without head or tail lights. Or helmets.

I can't decide whether it's a death wish or the invincible gene. Either way, I don't want to end up with splattered teenager all over my car. It's dirty enough as it is. (Sorry, morbid humor. I'm just kidding in case anyone took that seriously). I get so tense because I am always afraid a kid is going to dart out in front of me. It's happened enough times as it is.

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DS is still in a lot of pain. I went to the store today to get more medical tape, neosporin and some epsom salts for him to soak his feet in. Then after the soak we have to pour a bit of hydrogen peroxide on his toes, then dry them, then put neosporin on the wounds, then put guaze around them and tape it in place. The one toe looks better than it did yesterday. The swelling has gone down. The other looks worse. Anyway, I spent $12.43 on the medical supplies.

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It seems like my cushion is being wittled away. Instead of an extra $400 to send to the credit card, I'll have closer to $300. Oh, well. Life goes in it's own direction, which is not necessarily the direction you want it to go in.

I'm just trying to hold out and not order a pizza. I think I am going to bump up pizza night to tomorrow. Homemade of course. I need to get past the desire to order one takeout. Mine always taste better.

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We got the invite to DH's Christmas Party for work in the mail. December 14th. Not that we can go even, it's in Anchorage, but that means the bonus checks will be given out to those who go and mailed out to those who don't. Which means we should have it in about 3 weeks time. I so hope it is the rumored amount, which is twice what last year's was. I know I can do a lot with it either way, but to be able to pay it all off at once...well, I can't help anticipating it.

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I am on my third day of no caffeine. I was throwing my diet out the window and up to about four cans a day of Pepsi Throwback. It was bad for me and it was getting to be an expensive habit. So here's hoping I can keep it out of the house. I am really tired, but I know that will pass in another couple of days. Already my stomach is feeling better and my heartburn is gone. I don't know what gets into me. I try to keep our food pretty natural and ethical and then I just kind of throw it out the window on one item. Human nature, I guess. Pepsi Throwback is actually in the 100 mile food shed, there's a bottling factory one county over, but that is not a good excuse!

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DD's MP3 player broke and she about had a nervous breakdown. She's somewhat OCD (not as bad as DS) and listening to her music about a half an hour before bedtime is part of her calming routine. I helped her figure out one of the free internet radio things that you can put in one artist and then it plays other artists in that vein. She was a little worried about it running all night and I told her it was fine as long as it wasn't loud enough to disturb the rest of us.

I also told her we could buy a new one on Friday, that I'd advance her the allowance to do so. She's had her current one for several years and taken very good care of it, but it just won't turn on. Fortunately, she had all her music backed up on her computer, so the loss isn't total.

It's been such a long day. I'm glad that it's over. I'm looking forward to payday on Friday. I want to see that debt total go down. One more nail in the coffin of the Evil Empire.

I recieved my $5 gift card to Amazon from Swagbucks and just racked up enough points to order another one. Right now my account sits at $50 worth of GC's. Searching went well today with a 100 point search. I thought it would take me a couple more days at least, but nope.

I also deposited $3.09 to the coin jar. I need to make it over to the EF CU to deposit that money. I just don't seem to have as much free time to do it these days.

We finally got a hard frost last night. And I do mean a hard one. When I went out at 7 to take DD to school there was thick ice on the windows. Fortunately,I had some spray on de-icer. I started the car heating and defrosting while I sprayed it on. Unfortunately, there was a layer of ice on the inside of the windshield and you can't spray de-icer on the inside because of the fumes. I had to scrape it. It wasn't nearly as thick on the inside.

I checked all the windows to make sure nothing had been partially down overnight to cause it to freeze inside, everything was up. Then after I scraped it we had to sit for a while with the defroster going to get rid of the humidity that was making it fog up. The car probably ran for 20 minutes before the windows were safe to see out of. Fortunately, DD's school doesn't start until 7:45, she just likes to get there early. She was still fifteen minutes early.

I was really surprised because we've had such mild weather this fall, I was expecting it to continue. The broccoli looked like it was a goner this morning, but the leaves all thawed out just fine by mid-day and were looking as healthy and beautiful as ever.

I had to take DS to the foot doctor today. He had gotten inflamed ingrown toenails on both of his big toes. It runs in the family. Of course he did this early in the holiday weekend so he's been miserable pretty much since Thursday. The doc drained them and packed them with cotton and prescribed an anti-biotic.

We'll go back on Monday next to see if they need surgical correction after the swelling has gone down. It's a very minor surgery, he just cuts away a bit of the tissue and any torn part of the nailbed. They use a local anesthetic, lidocaine. DS had a lot of relief just by having the side of the nailbed packed with cotton. It will probably have to be corrected though if he is anything like me or his father. Bad toenails or not, DS has the nicest looking feet. He could totally be a foot model or something.

Anyway, so we paid out $4.76 for his antibiotic and I renewed my BP med while we were there for $40.00. And since that store happened to have some Haagan Das vanilla ice cream I got that too, for $6.49. A little more than I like to pay for it, but at least I found it. Considering I wanted to just tool on down the road a bit to Arby's and buy dinner instead of coming home and making stir-fry, that's not too bad. Arby's would have added about $35. And my cooking was better anyway.

I think the heater is going to have to stay on 70 tonight. I can feel the chill through the house despite having on slipper socks, a sweater, and an afgahn over my lap. I've pulled out the extra blankets for everyone, but we may still be sleeping in sweats tonight.

All of the birds were out today, even Silver (the shyest and most timid) and Lady (the duck). They've decided to be free range apparently. But they stayed in the yard and still put themselves into the coop a half hour before dark. Lady was less than pleased that her little pond was frozen over and she let the whole world know. Not that she's super loud or anything, it was just a constant murmur of complaint.

Fort Knox remains empty. It's just as well. It's warmer in the chicken coop with all 13 birds sharing body heat. We have to be a little more aware of the waterers now, making sure they aren't frozen. They will be eating a lot more feed now to keep up their body temps and be able to lay eggs. We got 7 today. There were five delivered to the box on the back porch. Both leghorns are laying in there now. Because why use a perfectly good set of nesting boxes when you have access to the world's best cardboard box?

I plan on doing a lot of stir-fry this week. Although it is a bit labor intensive, it is also pretty quick if I do up all the vegetables for the week tonight.

I am working on getting my freezer inventory down. I have a lot of vegetables on hand that need to get used as well. The garden is still producing broccoli. What a crazy weather year.

Monday--
Beef and Broccoli stir-fry (carrots, onions, cauliflower, green beans, celery)
Pears

Tuesday--
Baked chicken
Baked potatoes
Oranges
Coleslaw

Wednesday--
Black pepper chicken (celery, onion, bell peppers)
Pears

Thursday--
Tropical Chicken stir-fry (many veggies)
Canned pineapple

Friday--
Homemade pizza (ham, onions, bell peppers, pepperoni)
Stir-fried green beans

Saturday--
Spaghetti with pork and lamb meatballs
Cole slaw
Oranges

Sunday--
Beef Chuck pot roast
Stir-fried green beans
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams
Canned corn from TJ's

I haven't posted in a couple of days. We cancelled Thanksgiving. When 3 out of 5 people can't keep their food down there isn't much point. We are going to have it on Sunday, though. We are all much better today so another night of rest under out belts and we should feel up to a food centric holiday.

I think I am going to have to stop shopping at the Haggen closest to us. I went to pick up something from the deli (I know I said I wasn't going to grocery shop except for milk, but best laid plans and all that) and they had no hot food available. It was 5:30 on a Friday. They should have had the case full of rotisserie chicken, roasted chicken, and fried chicken and jojos and corn dogs, etc. Also there was nothing in the salad bar or the hot soup area.

When I asked about it they said they had been throwing out a lot of food lately so from now on when it runs out it runs out and they won't be making more. Really? Not to have hot food for the dinner rush is just ridiculous. I mean, I don't get it much but I wanted a darn rotisserie chicken.

Combine that with all the other changes they've made this year and I'm just not very happy with them. They did a completely unnecessary remodel and then jacked up all the prices to pay for it. (I know food prices have gone up across the board but TJ's and the Co-op did not go anywhere near this high). They keep moving the food around (you are not Costco, knock it off) so it is hard to find and you have to walk up and down all the aisles. The aisles are mislabelled or not labelled well.

They separate things that should be together, like flour and sugar. Last night you could smell the fish counter from several feet away. But the kicker lately is the ice cream. Now there are only two brands of ice cream we can buy due to allergies: Hagan Das and Bryers. But we can only specifically buy the regular vanilla. Bryer's had 5 times of vanilla (lactose free, carb smart, splenda, low-fat, and French vanilla) but none of them the plain and Hagan Das had no vanilla whatsoever. The only vanilla I could find in any other brand had corn syrup, or HFCS, guar gum and artifical vanilla flavoring.

They have taken to carrying about 20 brands of ice cream, many of them touted to be organic and healthy, but none of them with pure ingredients. They are also carrying a ton of things that seem to be tailored to a different shopping base than this store has had for the last 38 years. Like a hoity toity shopping base in what was for many years the area where the mill workers lived.

There are 3 other Haggen stores in the county and I think I will check out the two other ones in this city, but if I see the same sorts of changes than I am done. I may have been shopping there since I was four, but if you mess with my buying habits (and my ice cream), I'm moving on. Probably just as well to do my shopping at the Food Co-op, TJ's and the farm.

DH has been bugging me about what I want for Christmas. I'm thinking the hard ice cream maker machine. Then I know my ingredients will be pure and when I run out I can just make another batch. It's a bit pricier than our Christmas budget, but my birthday is in February so I can make it a combined present. Just like so many other things, I'll just have to learn to make it myself.

Not much of anything, but a little bit of everything. I added $1 to the coin jar. It was in what DH gave back to me before he headed to Alaska.

I balanced the checkbook to the penny again. I love it when it comes out perfectly. I have $419 left in checking until the 30th and no bills due until after that. I shouldn't have to buy anything between now and then except milk and oranges and if I do, I have $105 in cash. I am hoping to send the full $419 to the credit card. Any cash left from the $105 will hit the emergency fund.

I had to send DH to the grocery store with a list before he left Monday because I am extremely contagious. Let's just say he spent quite a bit more than I would have. Total was $115.92 We're over the allotted grocery budget for the month, but we aren't going to eat out between now and then anyway because I am trying to expose as few people as possible to this thing that never ends, so I just took it out of that money.

I received a check from ACOP for $14.05 for surveys and sent for another $5 gift card through Swagbucks.

I set up the budget spreadsheet for December and I updated the November one with all of the medical spending.

I ordered a box of checks. It was $16.86. They are getting more expensive but I am using them less and less. I still don't want a debit card. I feel like writing the check out makes me more mindful of what I'm spending. It's too easy just to swipe a card and forget about it.

My kids have decided they want to spend the entire weekend in their pajamas. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I may join them in that.

Mom is cooking dinner tomorrow. She's the only one not infected and she wants to stay that way. Eldest sister is coming over. I'm still not used to her wanting to be a part of our lives. It is weird. I never thought I'd see the day where I was actually looking forward to having her around again. I am hesitant to think I can rely on her to help out with Mom, but maybe she will.

The day won't be too hard on Mom. I had brought up just skipping it until I'm better (ha!) if she didn't feel like she could handle it, but she wanted to. Since we are only making Cornish game hens instead of a turkey and baking the potatoes and dressing at the same time she says it's easy. Mom has a double oven, which is helpful. Minimal fuss, minimal muss.

We will also have fresh broccoli from the garden. I still can't beleive that I am harvesting anything in late November! What a weird fall we are having.

Let's see, what else? Oh, the birds. Kyri has finished molting I think. Queen and Patricia are in full blown molt so not laying at all, and the pullets continue to lay pretty well, as does Lady who is still bunking with the chickens. There's been no luck on trying to find some ducks her age to keep her company. I think she's happy enough thinking she's a chicken.

There are now four chickens who are laying regularly in the little box on the back porch. Apparently it's the in thing to do. New to the box is a leghorn since those are the only white egg layers we have. Everyone else lays brown, pink, or blueish green eggs. Daily egg count is an average of six eggs. I am glad we haven't needed to put a light in with them at night. We might in December and January just for a heat source if the weather turns and it starts freezing, but it has been so mild so far we may luck out.

And...I think that about covers it. Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow to all of my American friends and happy Thursday to everyone else.

I read a lot of frugality and debt-reducing blogs and message boards and one thing that comes up time and time again is the argument over cable TV. This is not pointed at anyone here. I read blogs in lots of places. These are just my general observations. Anyway, it tends to go something like this:

Person 1: I am desperate to make ends meet. I can barely meet my minimums. I'm thinking about bankruptcy because I don't possibly have any place in my budget that I can cut. Help me!

Person 2: Oh, look, there in your budget, $180 for cable and internet. That's a good place to cut.

Person 1: But I have to have internet. I need it for work. I need it to pay my bills. I need it to do my banking.

Person 2: Okay, but you can get high-speed internet access for $70 a month. Keep the internet, but ditch your cable and you will still be saving $100 a month.

Person 1: Ditch my cable? Are you crazy? I cannot survive without my cable, my precious. I have to have my cable. I NEEEEEEEED it.

Person 2: No you don't. You need food and shelter and clothes and to pay your debts. You don't need cable. I should know. I haven't had cable in 5 years.

Person 1: Well, I have to have it. It's my only source of entertainment.

Person 2: Really? Your only source of entertainment? So you can't read a book or borrow a free movie or a book on CD from the library? You can't watch programs for free on youtube? You can't surf the internet. You can't teach yourself to do something productive, like knit, while you are listening to the free radio?

Person 1: No, no, I must have cable. I must have my shows.

Person 2: So you can't watch them on the internet on the networks' websites?

Person 1: But they don't air on the same day as they do on TV. I would have to wait a whole 24 hours, or in some cases 8 days. I can't be that far behind on my shows! Everyone else is watching them as they air!

Person 2: So it's not really for entertainment then. Because if it were for entertainment, it wouldn't matter what day you watched it on as long as you had something to watch that day. Is it to keep up with everyone else? Like...the Joneses?

Person 1: Huh?

Person 2: If everyone jumped off a bridge would you?

Person 1: I would if it were on cable TV! And besides, I don't like watching my TV on an itty bitty TV screen. I like watching it on my 60 inch flat screen that I am still paying off.

Person 2: Because you couldn't get a cable to plug your laptop into your TV so you could watch the internet shows on the bigger screen?

Person 1: Why get a cable, when I can just keep cable?

Person 2: Because you can't afford it.

Person 1: But I NEEEEEEED it. You don't understand my situation. I can't give this up, find something else in my budget to help me cut.

Person 2: Fine, what about your grocery budget? $800 a month for one person, that seems like an awful lot, doesn't it?

Person 1: Well, yes, but I have to eat out. I don't know how to cook and anyway fast food is cheaper.

Person 2: No, not really. If you can read a cookbook, you can learn to cook. Or make a sandwich.

Person 1: But it takes so much time! I am too busy. I can't cook. I have 4 programs to watch tonight and I might miss one if I am cooking.

Person 2: Then you are seriously watching too much TV.

Person 1: But it's my only source of entertainment!

Person 2: Well, there is your cell phone bill...

Person 1: No, I just got locked into a two year contract. It was the only way I could get the super fancy phone.

Person 2: I give up.

Person 1: Why won't anyone help meeeeeee? I need to find some place to cut...

And so it goes, on and on. I guess I just don't get it. Is it like an addiction, the TV watching? Is it like giving up alcohol or cigarettes? Or is it like giving up the pretext that you are still part of the middle class you grew up in? Does giving up cable mean you have to face the truth of your situation?

I think maybe cable TV is the last bastion of entitlement. I think people feel like maybe they are still keeping up if they can keep their cable or their meals out. But if the cable goes then they have to face the fact that things are really serious and they can't always have what they want. They can't continue to hide their heads in the sand (of network TV).

The thing is, there is no easy rescue. Even bankruptcy is difficult to get these days and it doesn't always erase all of your debt anymore. When your debts are crushing you, there is only one thing you can do to climb out of the pit. You have to cut down to the bare essentials. You have to give up things you don't want to give up. You have to put your head down and plow through it. You can't have the kind of pride that gets in the way of your ultimate goal of getting out of debt. You have to work your tail off to keep your head above water.

So many people seem unwilling to do these things. It is the rare and much admired person that cuts everything to the bone and pieces together an income that allows her or him to survive and thrive despite enormous obstacles, and to do it with a positive attitude. Too many people say, "I could never do that," when what they really mean is, "I don't want to do that." And that's what makes the difference.

You can say you want to be out of debt all you want, but if what you really want is to keep your life the way it is without making any changes, then you really don't want to be out of debt. You just want the problem to go away. And problems ignored don't just go away. They tend to get bigger. And Bigger. And BIGGER. And then it's not going to be a choice of you cutting your cable so you have money to pay your debts, it's going to be the cable company's decision to cut you off. And the power company's. And the water/sewer. And the garbage collection. And it won't matter then how badly you need to watch your shows or heat your house, or get rid of your waste. It won't be an option.

Isn't it better to decide now, today, to do what you can to get into a situation where that will never happen? Isn't it worth giving up a few luxuries so that maybe one day you won't have to? I think so. I really do. The question is, do you?

Today is airport day and I feel too yucky to cook so we will be getting takeaway from Boomers and adding our own sides and drinks at home. Normally DD would pitch in and cook, but she has a dentist appointment today so I'm going the easy route. We haven't eaten out for a while, so I'm good with that. I'm still getting lots of broccoli from the garden, so that will figure prominently and I am working our way through the pears and the case of oranges I bought.

Monday--
Fish and chips or burgers
Coleslaw
Oranges

Tuesday--
Beef and vegetable stir-fry (carrots, onions, celery, broccoli, bean sprouts)
Egg fried rice
Pears

Wednesday--
Steak
Fried potatoes
Green beans
Oranges

Thursday--
Cornish Game Hens
Roasted potatoes
Stuffing
Green beans
Oranges

Friday--
Baked potato soup
Coleslaw
Pears

Saturday--
Homemade pizza (pepperoni, onions, bell peppers, prosciutto)
Salad
Pears

Sunday--
Beef chuck pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Broccoli
Canned corn
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams

Now everyone wants to wait and have the turkey at Christmas. It came frozen and as yucky as I feel, I've decided it's fine with me. I am not up for cooking a fancy dinner right now. Heirloom heritage turkeys sure look different from the broad-breasted turkeys sold in grocery stores. They are longer and not rounded or compact. They have more dark meat and less breast, the way nature made them, which works great for my family since no one really cares for the white meat and it always ends up an ingredient in something else while we eat the dark meat straight.

I love the little packet that came along with it. It has thawing instructions, brining instructions, cooking instructions, a recipe for turkey stock, a recipe for turkey soup, and a recipe for stuffing.

It also has a page with a photo of the turkeys when they were about half grown and says this:

[i]You have purchased a healthy and happy turkey which was raised in sunshine and clean pastures during their growing season (never on fertilized pastures). Diet: A turkey will eat 25% of its diet on grass. Your turkey ate an organic mixture comprised of: Spelt, Emmer, Wheat, Peas, Camolina, Seaweed, and Sea Salt. We guarantee that we never buy grain or corn from China.[i]

So it makes my sustainability goal and it makes my 100 mile foodshed goal, since the ranch is about 50 miles away. Hopefully it will make my flavor goal as well when the time comes to cook it. It also came with a large, insulated bag for free. That will come in handy for our monthly trips there. They gave us another one last week (also for free) that is a little smaller.

Since I won't be making a big old Thanksgiving dinner after all, I've decided on roasting two Cornish game hens. That will give each person a half a bird (since DH will not be here). I will make a small pan of bread stuffing and we will have roasted potatoes and green beans. A mini-feast, I suppose.

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DH goes back to the slope tomorrow and he will be working for 3 weeks. Then he will be off for three weeks and return to the slope on New Year's Day. Then it's highly possible he will be doing a 3 and 1, before resuming his normal 2 and 2 schedule.

Christmas Bonuses usually come out around the middle of December. Last year it was on the 16th and anyone who wasn't there received those checks in the mail a couple of days later. I am trying not to anticipate it, but it's hard. I am a planner and I like to know what is going to happen. Last year it was 5% of DH's income. This year it is rumored to be 10%. I can't help hoping for the 10% because it would wipe out the rest of our credit card debt. But even 5% would do a huge amount of payoff and then our income tax return would finish it off. It will be quite high because we get to claim the full HSA deduction.

I've calculated what it will cost us if the payroll tax thing is not extended. It will be $170 a month for every four week pay cycle, or about $2040 a year. If they do reduce the child credit from $1000 back to $500 per child, it won't really affect us much. We couldn't claim one of our kids last year and only half of the other one because of income eligibility. And DD will be 17 next year, so we wouldn't be eligilbe to claim her in 2013's tax return anyway, as I understand it.

We can absorb it, we will be fine. I'm not so sure about many others though. I'd like to continue to have that money, but I don't resent it. I mean, my mother is on social security and Medicare, my SIL is on food stamps, and my BIL (my sister's husband) is on disability and before that was on unemployment for the full term allowed. I like to look at it as our taxes going to support the programs that support our family members. And we help directly as we can.

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We looked at a couple of houses. 1 beautiful 1756 square foot rambler, 3 beds, 2 baths, on one acre with an enormous shop and a smaller shop with attached office, for $239,200. It's just outside of town and mid-way between my Mom's house and my in-laws house. It's a funny piece of land, though, shaped like a pie wedge and the train track borders the property. Since trains go through at least six times a day, I think that would be too disruptive.

We looked at another really nice two story house about ten minutes out of town that has 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, a shop, a barn, and 3 acres for $299,000. It's set up so that the one floor could be used as a MIL apartment.

Then just for fun we looked at a $500,000 house with a lake view and a mountain view. It was spectacularly beautiful and had most of my dream house wants, like a baker's oven, a huge kitchen with lots of storage, a wrap around porch, gables, 1 acre grounds, hard wood floors, beach access. And it had a lot of DH's wants as well, with the shop and four car garage (makes me laugh as we are a one car family). If we could afford it, it would be big enough that we could house my mother, MIL and FIL and SIL and neice on top of our own family. But I do not want to mortgage our lives away. That is not in my plan for future happiness. It sure was pretty, though.

I think we're still a year away from househunting for real, to be honest. The repairs on the old house go slowly. I am hoping we will be able to put it on the market by spring, but I am not holding my breath. If it doesn't sell, we do have a solid tennant willing to rent it for $1000 a month. Average rents out there for that size home are $932, so it'd work out all right, we just wouldn't have money for a downpayment like we would if selling, so we'd have to save up for that, although I'd want to pay off the mortgage first. It'll be under $15K after the next payment. I don't want to have two mortgages on two houses, I'd rather own the possible rental outright.

Hopefully it will just sell though and we won't have to worry about it. There is an investor who is interested in it, but most investors try to lowball and I don't want to deal with a lowball investor, though I will if I have to. Mostly I just want to be done.

I'm really starting to think that public school is ruining my life. I swear my DD brings home every single germ that passes through those not so hallowed halls. 2 days of not keeping anything down and then today I slept from one a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and I actually feel like I could sleep another ten hours. I haven't eaten today, but I have had something to drink and so far so good. I might try some soup in a bit.

DH took DS with him to the ranch. We ended up deciding to get a turkey after all. It's a bit expensive, but we have the money right now and they still had one available. It would be nice to know exactly how my turkey lived out her life. Slaughter was yesterday, but we don't know if that means it will be thawed or frozen. If it hasn't been frozen I think we will go ahead and cook it tomorrow and make that our Thanksgiving. Otherwise we will wait until the day. Since DH goes back up to the slope on Monday it would be nice to do it a little early and include him.

I do know that whatever we do I'm going to make sure to strip the bones within a couple of days and package up any meat for the freezer that we won't be using right away. I can do quart sized baggies and then that way when I make two quart soups I will have enough meat to just dump in. I will also, of course, make the stock with the carcass.

I will also make up some TV dinners of turkey, potatoes with gravy and stuffing. I have several divided dishes. I also plan to make that casserole that Frugal Foodie posted the other day. And then probably turkey cacciatore, turkey fried rice, and turkey enchiladas (to freeze) as well.

I just find having a plan of what to do with all the leftovers cuts my waste down so much. And with an expensive organic, sustainably raised heritage turkey, I don't want to waste any of it. It'd be like throwing away money.

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Speaking of money, I recieved a check from ACOP for $14.05. I also qualified for a product study from them that will start November 26th. It'll be $8. I just need to keep a food diary for every member of the household for 4 days and then enter it online. I've done it before a couple years back. It took me about an hour altogether.

I also spent $16.89 of my allowance to get four pairs of super thick slipper socks to wear around the house. That leaves me with $55.81 that I have no idea what to do with. I guess I can set it aside in an envelope I found from last summer that had my name on it and had a few dollars of my last allowance in it. I guess I had never spent it and then we stopped taking allowances for the grown ups while we were paying the $2500 of DS's medical.

I might go buy a couple of sweaters. I don't have very many and two of them have gotten pretty threadbare. As in I have to wear a shirt of the same color underneath them. Since I've had these two sweaters at least since DD was a baby (I'm wearing one in our family photo when she was just a few months old) they've definitely done their duty and can be retired. I think there is enough material on the one that is not worn that I could sew it into a gift bag for Christmas.

Other spending this week was to get DD 3 warm sweaters, 10 pairs of underwear, and a pair of slippers. The floors get really cold in this house. DH took DS shopping for pajama pants and a new belt to hold up his jeans, but ended up only getting the belt because DS decided to have a meltdown 10 minutes before the store closed and there was no time left to try them on. Hopefully they can try again tomorrow. DS was just a pickle all day yesterday, but it has been a long time since he has had a full on meltdown in public. So far that added up to $140.

DD needs a haircut, too, so that will be $15. Hopefully that will be it for a while. I am hoping to get through the next two weeks only buying milk, peanut butter, crackers, oranges, lettuce, celery, carrots, onions and cabbage. We have plenty of meat in the freezer and plenty of flour and sugar for making bread and rolls and cookies. There is plenty of broccoli still growing. Any money that is left in the grocery budget will be sent to the credit card.

I think someone looked down on me and said, "Well, she's done with those hurdles, let's throw some even bigger ones at her and see how she does."

So FIL may also have something wrong with his kidney. At least something showed up on his MRI. We knew this could happen, they told him so after his last surgery, but all seemed to be going well. So on top of more heart surgery, he may end up losing a kidney. So he's going to the doctor again for his heart tomorrow and a different doctor on Monday for his kidney.

If that weren't enough, my mother got back her MRI results as she's been having severe headaches. (Is there anyone not getting an MRI lately? It seems the thing to do.) She has had two mini-strokes since the last MRI six months ago. And she doesn't tell me this. I was teasing her about forgetting to put soap in the dishwasher (she teases me for similar things) and she says, "Well, maybe it's because I had two mini-strokes." I mean, come on, that is not the way you tell someone you've had a stroke, mini or not.

They were relatively minor, but I had noticed one side of her face was a little slacker than the other, but she still had control of it. And I have noticed her being slower on the uptake. I suppose I watch for these things because her mother had Alzheimers and my father did, so I've seen it up close and personal. It didn't seem like Alzheimers in her, just...something not quite right.

So I don't really know what that means for her health. She doesn't seem worried about it. She's 73, but I always figured she'd outlive me out of sheer stubborness. Now maybe it's going to happen sooner than I thought. At least I have her living will, her regular will, her pre-paid funeral stuff, and medical power of attorney.

We are prepared (well, maybe not mentally) and have been for a couple of years, but I still don't want to even think about it. In a couple of days I'm going to sit down with her and go through everything again. We haven't looked at it together since Dad died and she made a couple changes to reflect that.

At least WA state law does not require filial support to pay for long term care. 29 states legally can make you pay for your parents' care (though many don't enforce these laws). I can't even fathom what that would do to DH and I if we had to pay for long-term nursing home care for either of his parents or my mother. We've spent so much time paying off our own catastrophic medical debt. To have to start all over again would be so destructive to our lives.

I don't even know what any of this means to our future plans. We've been talking about buying a smaller house, but now I'm wondering about whether or not we will have to take in MIL or my mother at some point and if we did that, we'd need the space. I know from us living with my mother that lots of space is a very good thing. I am pretty sure either way it would fall on us. DH's sister couldn't afford it and I don't think my middle sister would allow the world to stop revolving around her long enough to take care of someone else. My eldest sister, much less the ice queen since she became a grandmother, might move in with my mom so long as Mom was still able, but I don't think she'd care for her if her mind started to go.

Can I be an ostrich just for a day or two? Because I'd really like to stick my head in the sand now.

The weather this fall has just been the weirdest weather I remember having. It's been unseasonably warm. 2 nights ago we finally did have a frost overnight and a temp of 28, but it has bounced back up into the high 40's at night. The frost didn't do any damage at all that I can see. The kohlrabi is fine, the green onions are still green and of course the cold-loving broccoli is doing great. All I can think is that because it is next to the house, maybe that is a warmer area and somewhat protected.

I've almost finished the broccoli that I have harvested. I think I'll need to cut a couple of the plants by Friday, but the rest are fine to continue their slower growth. It is nice not to have to purchase broccoli, but harvest it as I need it. I really wish I'd gotten some more lettuce into the ground in late September because we'd be eating it now.

The potato outcome is 107 pounds. These potatoes were all volunteers, too. So I've topped $1000 worth of organic produce harvested this year. Remember this is after the cost of starts and seeds. Just goes to show you really can grow a lot of food in small places. And if all goes well, I will still have twelve heads of broccoli to harvest and possibly some side shoots.

The tomatoes wrapped in newspapers continue to ripen as do the ones on the kitchen table. There is enough ripe to add to my spaghetti sauce this week.

As for the chickens and duck, we continue to average six eggs a day. Lady continues to bunk with the chickens. She has resumed her egg laying so I think she is over the trauma of the racoons eating her nest mates, except she won't go anywhere near the new Fort Knox duck den.

Mom is talking about getting ducklings in early spring to put in Fort Knox when they are big enough, but even if she does, Lady may have nothing to do with them. It can be interesting introducing new flockmates, to say the least. As long as she puts herself in for the night with the chickens she is welcome to stay in the chicken coop. If we have to chase her down all bets are off, but I don't think that is going to happen. She's convinced herself she is a chicken and I won't disabuse her of that notion.