Three weeks have gone by and I havent introduced Lydia Faith to you. Sorry you are really missing out she is one special girl. I would tell you how perfect she is and that she never cries but well then you might hate me. Instead I just let you look at the latest pitcure of her cuteness.
On that fateful November day that I over spent my budget I can home to news that my husband’s job was ending. Truly it was a depressing day but even still I knew and still know that God is in control and none of this surprises Him. So now Tad is officially jobless and we have to move because obviously we aren’t staff anymore and don’t belong in staff housing. I was very worried about how we were going to move without a job and pretty much no savings. Silly me I had forgotten that I serve the living God who loves to do what seem to man as impossible.
It was Tuesday when we found out about the job on Sunday night we got a phone call. Tad and I happened to pick up at the same time. It was Marty and he informed us that he was glad that we both picked up the phone as he had something to tell us. His parents have a duplex. One side has four bed rooms and has been sitting empty for the last two years. They were in the middle of remolding it when his dad suffered a stroke. Anyway they said we could move in rent free until Tad was able to find a new job. I started crying immediately. I know that Marty told us a lot about the house but I couldn’t hear any of it. All I heard was we had a place to stay. I really was worried we would end up in a homeless shelter. You can laugh but the fear of it was real to me. Okay, I did hear one other thing he said we could have cows there. I remember thinking cows? I just want a safe place for my children to sleep.
After the initial shock of having a place we could move to wore off I felt overwhelmed by the size of this gift. It was too great. They couldn’t do that I could never repay them for their kindness to my family. My mind struggled back and forth we couldn’t possibly accept such an offer I didn’t earn it and then back to gratefulness for God working on their hearts to do this for my family. In this struggle God spoke softly to my heart, didn’t He do something far greater for me in sending His Son to die on the cross for my sins? Of course it was far greater and goes on and on for all eternity and yet how do I respond to His great gift to me? Wow! This is not a lesson I will soon forget nor is it a lesson I want to forget.
I originally thought we would be moving before Christmas but they have ended up doing quite a bit more remodeling to the house than I originally understood. But now we are nearing the end and it looks like in two weeks we will be moving into a four bedroom house with a great layout, tile floors, granite counter tops, and it is on 7 acres. I am very excited to get moved in and start settling into the place. All these boxes are starting to drive me crazy. I can hardly wait to start setting things up for baby Lydia to join our family.
Though there has been many tears God has been so good to us we actually ended up with three different families saying we could live with them and the offer of my brother-in-law’s beach house until we could get on our feet. Many are the people God has used to comfort and provide for us. I don’t even know how to thank them or God. Truly I am among the most blessed.
Our pastor is big into setting goals. He preaches about it regularly or at least it sticks out in my mind that way. I like to set goals it helps me accomplish things I wouldn’t do otherwise. So back to our pastor he makes a goal for each year of his life every year and I have been doing the same. No, I don’t make all my goals some I don’t even start but I do get more done than if I didn’t set a goal at all. I have been enjoying reading other people’s goals for the year today so I thought that I would share mine just for fun. Goals for 2011
1. Read thru the entire Bible 1x, New Testament 2x, Proverbs 12x, Psalms 2x
2. Memorize 52 verses
3. Lose weight to —lbs. exact number(did you really think that I was going to give ?)
4. Get eyes checked and buy new glasses
5. Write out cleaning schedule for new house
6. Date Tad 2x a month
7. Have company 3x a month
8. 3 older girls learn how to swim
9. Pray for the lost daily
10. Read 12 chapter books to girls
11. Read 24 book for myself
12. Make and send birthday cards monthly
13. Start a crazy quilt
14. Make homemade taffy
15. Try again making rock candy
16. Once a month have a theme night on a different country
17. Finish Grace and Elizabeth’s baby scrapbooks
18. Make Lydia’s scrapbook to 6 months
19. Plant a garden
20. Can produce
21. Eat beans once a week
22. Update blog 2x a month at least
23. Go to dentist
24. Make 52 pages for family scrapbook
25. Make all 6 kids a homemade gift for Christmas
26. Stay at beach house
27. Save $5,000 for a new vehicle
28. Keep food budget to 2 dollars a day per person
29. $500 for clothing for the family for the year (good to me.I have no idea what we spend on clothes a year and I don’t think that it is this m much as the kids wear almost all hammy downs but the number sounded good to me.)
30. $500 for Christmas (this includes immediate family, extended family, the whole shebang.)
31. 30 meals prepared and in the freezer or canned before March 8th
What are your goals for the New Year?
It’s confession time. The original name for my blog was…..Becky’s Blunders. You see I kinda blunder through my days. Always making silly mistakes and breaking things. Once I threw away Tad’s paycheck and had to go dig it out of the trash outside the next day. That’s partly why I always have piles of papers on my counters. I am afraid of throwing out something important. But I digress.
Yesterday, I boiled a turkey. So in my pressure canner I boiled the majority of a 25lb turkey. In the afternoon I walked through the kitchen and a tackle box of beads fell off the top of the fridge. Strange but whatever and I went on wi th my day. While reading with Abby, Elizabeth comes upstairs and says, “mom, something is boiling.”
“Yes, dear it’s the turkey, right.”
“No, mom it’s your wallet.”
“Ahhh! Get it out!”
Elizabeth beat me downstairs and fished out my wallet. She ought to get a prize. My very greasy wet wallet didn’t fare well after being boiled for about an hour. My cards inside fared even worse. Did you know that credit cards warp beyond use and that gift cards shrink like shrink dink? Yep they do. I really wouldn’t lie about this.
I usually keep my wallet on top of the fridge safely away from small hands who knew that our dinner wanted to get its hand on my wallet too? My mom no longer wants to eat at my house. Maybe you don’t either being warned of things like this happening here.
Hey maybe this will be a regular feature on my blog. Welcome to the first edition of Becky’s Blunders.
Here it is Dec. 2nd and I still havent updated my blog. I over spent. Okay there I finally said it. I feel better now thank you. Curious where I over spent at? It was Winco. Yep the cheap store. I needed to spend $50 to get my turkey for 24 cents a pound and I spent a whopping $100. Yes I was depressed. It didn’t help that as the cashier was ringing up my groceries Abby kept saying, “Mom, look you spent too much money.” Umm embarrassing. I honestly thought of asking the cashier to stop but that seemed even worse. The lady had already made rude comments about how many kids I had. So now it looked like I couldn’t afford to pay my bill but really it was just a self-imposed price limit.
Then I had to go to Costco as Tad was out of coffee and we needed milk for the last two weeks of November still. So I got the coffee and milk I bought 8 gallons of whole milk and other stuff totaling another $50. Yes I spent $150 in one day really when you are feeding this many people it is very easy to do. We don’t usually drink whole milk but I thought for the sake of saving money we would. Doesn’t that make perfect sense to you? No, I didn’t really think that it would make sense but it did help me save money. The whole milk was the same price as the 2% we usually drink so I bought it and froze 5 gallons of it. At home I got out a juice pitcher and added half a gallon of water and half a gallon of whole milk and wala (how do you spell that?) we had twice as much milk as before. The kids never said anything until a week and half into it Tad asked if I had got skim milk. Umm, no, honey I didn’t. So I told him what I had done to the milk and he asked for less water which I obliged him. The two oldest girls kept a watchful eye out but kept drinking the milk. The youngest three drank and drank and drank or at least it seems that way to me. Just so you know freezing milk works great as long as you don’t mind that it separates and you get little spots on your glass from the fat. It didn’t bother any of us but I could see it bothering some people.
After that spendy day I didn’t go into a store again until the day before Thanksgiving. I had to buy French bread to go with my spinach dip and to get cheese which was on a great sale by the way. We were out of cheese and it was all my fault. Bad planning on my part.
So for the month of November I spent a grand total of $233.02 for all seven of us. I over spent $23 or just 77 cents a day or 11 cents a person per day. So over all it was not to bad but still I would have really liked to have come in under budget.
I am still planning on doing more price comparisons of homemade verses packaged. I have just been supper busy which is a whole nother post that will come soon, sooner than the last post, or kinda soonish.
I know you all are waiting with baited breath to see how I am doing with my dollar a day a person challenge. I am a little surprised none of you wanted to join me on my adventure but that’s okay because I didn’t really want to feed all of you every day.
First up is how much does a PB&J sandwich cost? We eat PB&J about 3 times a week for lunch. I made strawberry jam back in June and I also made blackberry jam in August. I don’t know exactly how much I spent on the strawberry jam. I didn’t keep track of it and now I wish I had but since I didn’t I just guessed. I know I bought 6 boxes of pectin, 2 flats of strawberries, and used over 10 pounds of sugar. Ahh! That sounds bad. But I still have 20 jars of jam in the freezer and we have used allot already. I figured the strawberry jam to cost about $.75 for an 18oz jar. The blackberry jam was only $.19 a jar because my only cost was sugar. We picked blackberries out of our field and boiled them with sugar and they make a tasty jam.
Peanut butter whole jar $2.50 or $.17 a serving
Strawberry Jam $ .75 or $.10 a serving
Whole wheat Bread loaf $2.50 or $.22 for two slices
Cheap White bread loaf $1.00 or $.10 for two slices
Cheap bread sandwich cost $.37each or $2.59 to feed the entire family
Whole wheat sandwich cost $.49 each or $3.43 to feed the entire family
When I told Tad this information he thought that the dollar burgers were a good deal and I being the tightwad that I am thought we should just take sandwich makings with us anytime we might need to eat while were out. I know PB&J isn’t a very exciting mean cost comparison but it is something we eat often and was practical for me. I am working on more of these for myself as I am wondering is it possible to eat for a dollar a day if I didn’t have this stock pile that I do. Right now I am thinking no. But maybe I have a skewed idea of meal costs.
Now to the real point of this post the grand total of money spent for the month of November on groceries.
Grand Total for November
$ 28.40
I think I am going to make it under $210 for the entire month. Last week I wasn’t so sure. I kept thinking about the gallon of milk we go through a day and I am not willing to give that up for this challenge. But I think we just might do it.
I may be crazy. Scratch that I am crazy but I am so excited for my hair brained crazy idea that I am going to share it with you all. We live on a limited budget. Wait doesn’t everyone? Anyway I have been spending more and more every month instead of saving anything for the holidays I have been dipping into our small savings. I need to reverse this bad habit and turn it into a good one.
Another bad habit I have is I am a bit of a food hoard. If you look in any of my cupboards you will see they are pleasingly full. I am really thankful for all the good food God has blessed us with and I want o be a good steward of it. I have decided that I need to use up some of my food storage. I want to save some money that I normally spend.
Here is my plan that I am posting here on this blog of mine for some accountability.
I am only going to spend a dollar a day per person for food this month.
$210 for the whole month
That’s it no more than that. Don’t think we will be starving by any means remember I have a large stash of food. No I haven’t been stocking up anticipating this crazy idea of mine. I just thought of doing this today. We could probably not spend anything and eat fairly well balanced meals but I do enjoy drinking milk and eating some fresh produce.
I am going to update every Tuesday on my progress with this dollar a day goal. I know I will be buying at least three turkeys from Safeway when they go on sale. I do this every year cook them up and divide it into meal portions and we use that chopped turkey for a lot of meals. I think that will be my biggest challenge as you have to buy $50 of food to get the cheap turkeys. Hmm this is going to be interesting.
Also I have thought of pricing out how much an actual meal costs for a long time. I read about figuring this out in The Tightwad Gazette at least 5 years ago and have never done it. This month I am going to do it. See if it is really cheaper to make bread, cake, pancake mix, etcetera… than buy it? I have always wondered and I have a strong feeling that it is but is it enough to make it worth it with the time it takes?
What do you think? Can I feed a family of seven for $210 for the entire month of November? Want to join me in my dollar a person a day? Do you think I am crazy?
If third world countries can do it maybe we can too.
