Frugal Living | One Hundred Dollars a Month

Gardening Projects for Kids – Planting Seeds in Eggshells

March 25, 2013 1 Comment

Chances are you’ll probably have a lot of egg shells on hand after Easter.

If you have young children, a fun way to get them excited about gardening is to let them to have a small area of their own to plant a garden.

It’s been my experience that peas are one of the easiest vegetables for children to grow. My kids have been planting them ever since they were around 2 or 3 and the size of the pea seed itself is perfect for tiny fingers to grasp.

How to Plant Peas in Eggshells

Collect a bunch of eggshells {half an egg shell is the perfect size}.
Rise the eggshells out with water.
Fill each egg shell with moistened potting soil.
Add 2 or 3 seeds and bury to the depth stated on the vegetable packet.
Place in a sunny windowsill and wait for the seeds to sprout {make sure to keep the seeds well watered}.
Once the seed has sprouted, wait until the seedling is about 4 to 5 inches tall before hardening off and setting outside.
Carefully crush the eggshell so the roots of the seedlings have room to grow.
Plant and water as you normally would any other plant in the garden.

Depending on the variety {I suggest Sugar Snap Peas for kids} peas should be ready to harvest in about 2 months. The cool thing about peas is you can build a teepee to hold up the vines or grow them along a fence. Either way they are fun for kids to watch grow because of the long vines and pretty flowers.

And they’ll love picking and eating them of course too.

Do your kids help in the garden? If so, what is their favorite thing to grow?

~Mavis

Be sure and check out the book The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids: 101 Ways to Get Kids Outside, Dirty, and Having Fun.

10 Easy Tips for Drinking More Water

March 25, 2013 13 Comments

{photo credit}

So this year I decided I was going to ease back a bit on my tea consumption {which I have now decided would be a better goal for NEXT year- ha!}. Even still drinking tea, I really do want to make an effort to drink more water. I’m going to try these easy tips to see make sure I get my 8 glasses a day {mostly so I can put my tea-habit guilt to rest}:

Make it part of every morning. Start off with 1 glass of water every morning first thing. One glass down, seven more to go.
Add a little lemon or lime juice to water to make the flavor more appealing.
Whenever hunger strikes, drink a glass of water first to rule out thirst/dehydration.
Drink a glass of water with each meal. It is supposed to aid in digestion, plus, there’s at least 3 glasses done.
Add a splash of juice to water. A little cranberry, apple, orange juice, etc. adds flavor without excessive calories.
Get a reusable water bottle. This way you can measure your consumption, take it with you where ever you go, reduce waste, and get something with a little style–which somehow makes it easier to swallow {pun intended}.
Fill a container full of 64 oz of water and put it in the fridge–fill your cup or bottle from this container. It will be a visual reminder or how much more you need to drink before the day is out.
Filter your water. Filtered water tastes and smells better. It will be much easier to get down.
Everytime you empty your glass or bottle, immediately fill it back up. That way, you always have easy access to it.
Go one-for-one with other beverages. For every glass of soda, juice, coffee, tea, etc. you drink, drink a glass of water. {This ought to solve my problem completely}

How about you, do you have trouble getting enough water into your day?

~Mavis

Filed Under: Frugal Living Tagged With: frugal living

Bartering with Mavis – Trading Garden Work for Rice and Sugar

March 25, 2013 5 Comments

Yesterday I headed over to Girly Girl’s garden to do a little bartering. I used my love of pulling weeds {ha!} and mad gardening skills to tidy up her garden beds and plant her spring garden.

Luckily a few of her kiddos were wager to help.

I asked one of the girls for a weed bucket and she brought me a snow sled. Awesome!

There were still a bunch of new potatoes in last years potato bed and the kids had a ball searching for them. I think it made the digging and weed pulling go a lot faster because they all wanted to find some potatoes.

It took us just a little over 1 hour to clear 2 garden beds and pull the weeds in the surrounding areas.

Removing the brush alongside the fence was never part of the deal thankfully.

For those of you who were wondering what Girly Girl was doing while I was pulling her weeds, she was playing Karate Kid and waxing her SUV with her husband Chino the Handyman.

This is what the garden beds looked like before we started.

And here they are all cleaned up.

Two hours worth of garden clean up {with help from the kids} on a wonderfully sunny day was bartered for a 25 pound sack of sugar and a giant bag of rice.

Sounds like a pretty good trade to me.

I love gardening, and especially teaching young children about growing food. This is the 3rd spring in a row I’ve helped Girly Girl’s kids get their garden started, and I really have a good time while I’m over there. So it really doesn’t seem like to much work to me.

Do what you love, and everything will work itself out.

Peace Out Girl Scouts, I’m off to go pull some of my own weeds now.

~Mavis

Looking for a great gardening book? Check out The Backyard Homestead and learn how you can produce all the produce you need on only a quarter acre.

Filed Under: Bartering, Frugal Living, Gardening, Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: bartering, frugal living, Gardening, Weekly Shopping Trips

Kitchen Tips – How to Make Buttermilk

March 24, 2013 7 Comments

I always avoided recipes that had buttermilk in them because I thought buttermilk was too expensive. But then I learned a quick way to make my own buttermilk using 2 simple ingredients I always have on hand. Milk and vinegar.

So although this method is not new to me, I want to thank One Hundred Dollars a Month reader Kathy for reminding me of this easy kitchen tip. Everyone should know about this, especially with baking season right around the corner.

How to Make Buttermilk

Ingredients

Milk {just under one cup}
1 Tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice {I always use white vinegar}

Directions

Place a 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice in a liquid measuring cup, and add just enough milk to bring the liquid up to the one-cup line.

Let the mixture stand for five minutes. Then, use as much as your recipe calls for. Store extra buttermilk in the refrigerator for later use.

*Thanks Kathy for the reminder, you rock!

10 cool uses for vinegar
Looking for more cool ways to use vinegar?

Check out our 10 Cool Uses for Vinegar post. You never know, you might learn something new.

Filed Under: Easy Kitchen Tips, Recipe Tagged With: easy kitchen tips, how to make buttermilk, recipe

Will Work for Food – Garden Clean Up

March 23, 2013 65 Comments

Girly Girl promised me a 25 pound sack of sugar if I would clean up her garden boxes and get her spring vegetables planted for her. Last year we bartered my garden skills for a 25 pound sack of sugar and a giant case of Costco toilet paper.

So last night I went over to see exactly what needed to be done. And why on earth the toilet paper was taken off the table this year. I was hoping she had kept up with her garden all winter and it would only take me an hour or so to earn that sack of sugar.

Can you say OH MY FREAKIN’ WORD?

What a mess! She wants me to clean all this up for a 25 pound sack for sugar that runs about $15 at Costco? Is she on soccer mom crack? This is going to take some time.

She has four raised garden beds that all look about like this. Plus, I’m suppose to pull the weeds in the surrounding mulch.

What do you think is a fair trade for all this work? I’m estimating it should take me about 3 hours to pull all the weeds and get her boxes planted for spring.

A 25 pound bag of sugar is just not going to cut it. I’m thinking I might need one of those giant bags of jasmine rice too.

What do you think I should ask Girly Girl for {food wise}? Keep in mind she pretty much only shops at Costco these days.

~Mavis

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Gardening Tagged With: frugal living, gardneing

Children and Their Most Prized Possession – Toys

March 22, 2013 7 Comments

If you asked your child what their most prized possession was, what do you think they would say?

My friend Mama JJ is currently in Guatemala with her family serving a mission through her church. JJ, her husband {Mr. Handsome} and her 4 children will be gone for 9 months.

And while doing good deeds and learning about other cultures is really cool, when you are nine years old, and away from home, and the only possessions you have are clothes and books, you kind of miss your toys. A lot.

At the heart of it, every child needs a toy. Any kind of toy will do.

And so when Judy from Australia sent me a link to a photo essay about children from around the world with their most prized possessions, it made me think of my friend JJ’s daughter.

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE these kinds of stories!

Here are a few more interesting photo essays I spotted on photographer Gabriele Galimberti‘s site.

Local Celebrities
Delicatessen with love

~Mavis

You can read more about JJ and follow her journey on her blog Mamas Minutia.

Filed Under: Frugal Living Tagged With: frugal living

Raising Backyard Chickens – Mean Girls Club

March 22, 2013 17 Comments

{Lucy the Puggle Dog checking in on her chicks}

I’m sure you’ve noticed I haven’t been posting too much about our latest round of baby chicks.

That’s because we thought one of them was going to die.

2 weeks ago we brought home 3 blue cochin baby chicks. Blueberry, Blue Bell, and Omelet. A few days after we brought the chicks home, our dear sweet Matilda died as a result of being egg bound for four days.

As the baby chicks grew and started to feather out a bit, we noticed one of them {Blueberry} was about half the size of the other two chicks.

She was a runt.

And they picked on her.

On more than one occasion either the Handsome Husband, The Girl or I found poor little Blueberry on her side, struggling to stand up. Then on Tuesday, as I was leaving to go run errands, I noticed not only was she on her side, she was near lifeless and her beak was open as if she was gasping for her last breath. There was nothing I could do for her.

So I picked her up, and placed her in a small box and propped her up about 18 inches from the heating lamp. I thought, well, at least this way she can die warm, and in peace without the other chicks finishing her off by pecking her to death.

I thought she was a goner for sure, and was trying to decide if I should bury her before The Girl got home to spare her after what had happened to Matilda.

And then I left to go run errands.

Long story short, I came back about an hour later and Blueberry was up and walking around her box cheeping like a mad woman and trying to figure out how to get out.

I’m not sure if she was playing possum or what, but she is one tough little bird.

Since I’ve never really had to deal with baby chicks picking on one another to this extreme before, I was hoping some of YOU might have some advise. I know chickens are very social creatures, and I would hate to separate them and cause anxiety among them.

What do you think I should do?

~Mavis

Filed Under: Chickens, Frugal Living Tagged With: chickens

Mavis Goes to the Goodwill and Finds the Best Dress Ever!

March 21, 2013 37 Comments

It was a dream come true I tell you.

This afternoon I walked in to our local Goodwill store and made a b-line for the shoe rack like I always do {looking for garden boots of course} and there it was.

The most gorgeous dress in the world.

Holy crap that is awesome came out of my mouth so loud, the lady who was looking at a $19.99 coffee table {also an awesome deal} looked up with “your’e a total psycho” eyes before I could shut my mouth.

Oh, and I also scored another cool pair of garden boots too!

I love thrift stores!!!

~Mavis

P.S. What is the best thing you’ve found at a thrift store lately?

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: frugal living, goodwill, thrift stores, Weekly Shopping Trips

How Much do People Spend on Groceries Per Week?

March 20, 2013 36 Comments

{Mavis’ Albertsons Double Coupon Shopping Trip February 2012}

Several years ago I borrowed the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats from the Library.

The book featured families from around the world showing the groceries they purchased in any given week. The one thing that really stuck out to me was that no matter how much food the families had to display for the photographer, they were all very proud of what they had.

Just as I probably was last year around this time when I scored all the food you see above for $7.24.

What this picture didn’t show of course was how I had to get up at the crack of dawn, drive to the store with a fistful of coupons, collect my pre-orders, stand in line, wait, then proceed to check out, drive home, unload the food, display the food, and then photograph it all and write up the lengthily transaction details.

{Mavis’ Winco Grocery Shopping Trip January 2013}

Fast forward to about a year later, and I have pretty much bowed out of the whole extreme coupon craze. Why? Because I was tired of playing the game. I’d rather spend less time and effort on grocery shopping, and more time with my family at home and playing in my garden.

I think it will be interesting to see if I can pull off spending an average of one hundred dollars a month on food for the third year in a row. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it without trying as hard, but I am sure going to give it my best shot.

***************

I was recently reminded of Hungry Planet: What the World Eats {and the pictures behind them} on facebook by Katleen and Carol. I found the pictures in a series of 3 picture posts on Time.com and thought you might want to take a peek.

What the World Eats Part 1
What the World Eats Part 2
What the World Eats Part 3

Can you identify with any of these families?

Is there a particular family you think your grocery shopping habits are similar to?

How much do YOU spend on groceries per week?

~Mavis

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Money Saving Tips Tagged With: frugal living, money saving tip

DIY – How to Make Your Own Potting Soil

March 19, 2013 21 Comments

If you plan on growing anything in pots this year, potting soil is absolutely essential. Garden soil is just too heavy when growing in pots. The thing is, pre-made bagged potting soil is crazy expensive, and since this year, I plan on growing quite a few things in containers, I decided to make my own.

Here are the ingredients you’ll Need:

Peat Moss
Vermiculite
Compost
Fertilizer {if you use it}
A Mask for your face {this is optional, but I don’t want to breath any of the mix in, especially since I will be using chicken poo as my fertilizer}
A wheelbarrow or large pot to mix your potting soil

The basic recipe is easy peasy. Mix one part each of the peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. I’m not a big fan of store bought fertilizer, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the chickens’ job, so I’ll be collecting my compost from the floor of the chicken run. This will eliminate the need to use fertilizer.

It’s easiest if you just grab a bucket and throw one bucket of each ingredient into your mixing container. Add a little water and stir it around with gloved hands or a shovel.

Then, just grab your containers and filled them with potting soil. If you are using a commercial fertilizer, fill your pots half way, add a scoop of fertilizer and mix it in. Fill your container the rest of the way, repeat the fertilizer step, and voila, you’re done.