Putting a stop to bad habits

It's been a busy week, with my school semester coming to an end, Elizabeth's school about to let out for the summer, the kids' sports, dance and what not. Since I've not felt the greatest this week, I took a break for a few days and am now ready to soldier on.

I'll start with a confession: I'm a pint-oholic. I looove my pints. I love ice cream in general, but I'm most in love with two men-Ben & Jerry. I never need a good reason to get chip-faced; and most of the time I blame it on my little peanut Catherine (making her debut in September).

When I sat down a few weeks ago to look at the household budget to find ways to cut expenses, one thing I looked at was a stack of grocery receipts. I didn't realize just how often I was spending on this habit without even thinking twice, and I was mortified for two reasons: first; because it is an expensive habit, and second; what was I doing to my health by eating so much damn ice cream? I tracked how many times I purchased these pints and here are the staggering numbers I came up with:

3 pints a week @ $3.99 a pint = $11.97 a week. Multiply this by 52 and I come up with $622.44.

$622.44 a year for my ice cream habit!! and that's not including my husband's pints. If I did, we'd double this figure to over $1200 a year just in ice cream. Even though there is no one to see me adding this up, I just wanted to die of embarrassment.

Then, I looked at it from the health point of view. by consuming 3 pints of ice cream a week, I'm taking on an extra 3,360 calories a week. I'm an obese woman, ashamed as I am to admit it. Partly my fault; and partly due to a hormone disorder, but obese nonetheless. The LAST thing I need to be doing is packing on an extra 3300 calories a week. Holy shit. It was time to nip this bad habit in the butt for both the health of my being and my bank account.

We have since cut down our pint habit to once every couple of weeks or so, and purchasing as a splurge. In the mean time, I am trying to satisfy my sweet tooth with fresh fruit and yogurt. by doing this, I will have managed to save by the end of the year almost $400. Double that number for including Scott's share. I will also manage to cut back by a staggering 11,200 calories a month (OMG these numbers are seriously scary).

Here is my challenge for you: Save all your receipts for a month-every single one. Organize them by category (food, gas, entertainment, dining out, clothing, etc.). At the end of the month, look at these receipts and find where you are being wasteful, or where you may just be spending mindlessly. Look at those numbers from all angles to see how it affects not only your cash flow, but also your health and well-being. I guarantee that almost all of you will be shocked at just how much that daily latte adds up.

The difficulty for many people is that splurges become habits without the person realizing it. Whether it be buying a candy bar and a bottle of water when checking out at the store, alcohol, partying, drugs, debauchery, entertaining, clothing, or whatnot-sit down for a moment to take a look at how this spending affects every aspect of your life. Think of the money you could be putting aside for savings, paying off credit cards, paying down your mortgage, or saving for retirement. Think of what it can do your health. Not as fun as digging into a yummy pint of Bonnaroo Buzz, but you'll thank yourself in the long run for taking time now to put a stop to your bad habits.

Hint for the day: A splurge is healthy every once in a while. It’s an irregular expense – not one that you spend money on every day or even every week. It also fills you with joy when you do it – and you still feel happy about it a day later. In short, you derive quality of life from that purchase. A habit is never healthy. When an experience (particularly one tied to spending) becomes routine and normal, it should either fulfill a basic need in a simple way or it should be reconsidered. If it doesn’t add genuine value to your life – or if there’s a cheaper option that could add the same value – then you shouldn’t be spending your hard-earned money on it.

Check this out!: I came across this website recently. It's full of advice in all aspects of personal finance. The best part is, it's in layman's terms. http://www.thesimpledollar.com/

Baking bread to break even

I went to the store the other day, looking for a loaf of bread. I just happened to take a look at the shelf where the wonder bread is, and saw that for a loaf of plain white bread, it was $2.99. Are you serious??? Is this wheat harvested out of the White House garden or something? Good grief.

Before I went to pick up my daughter from school, I went to the store and bought flour and a jar of yeast. I splurged and bought a 5lb. bag of bread flour for $2.99. All purpose flour was $1.99, and whole wheat flour was $3.99. The jar of yeast was $3.99. I came home and did the calculations of how much it would cost to make a loaf of bread at home based on my recipe, and this is what I came up with:

15 cents per cup of flour (based on the bread flour price)

25 cents per tablespoon of yeast

16 cents per 1/4 cup of oil

07 cents per 1/3 cup of sugar

The recipe calls for the following:

6 cups flour

1.5 T yeast

1/4 cup oil

2/3 cup sugar

2 cups warm water

1 1/2 t salt

If you do the calculations based on the recipe (minus the salt and water, as the cost is trivial), you should come up with $1.57 per batch. This batch makes two loaves, so you're paying $0.79 per loaf of fresh, unprocessed bread. No chemical or preservative added bread. instead of $2.99 for a loaf of bread that is laden full of stuff we can't even pronounce. This should be a no-brainer, why didn't I do this before?!?! In one word: Convenience.

Instead of taking an hour or so out of my day to make up several dough loaves to freeze, I just grabbed whatever was on the shelf while at the store. Bread really doesn't take much time to make, especially when you have the recipe down pat, and can throw it all together quickly. Then just roll it into loaves, wrap in plastic wrap before giving it a chance to rise, then throw it in the freezer. When you need more bread, just pull out, thaw and let rise, and bake. The only difference is, you'll need to store it in the refrigerator, because there are no preservatives to keep it soft and from spoiling quickly. I think that's worth the sacrifice, don't you?

So, to wrap this up: In order to calculate the cost of making vs. buying-

*Take the price you paid for your ingredients and divide it by the number of cups, T, t, ounces, etc. in each item (i.e. 20 cups of flour in a 5 lb. bag, 16 T yeast in a jar, and so on).

*Take that number and multiply it by the amount your recipe calls for (.15 cents per cup flour multiplied by 6 cups flour).

*Take these numbers and add them together, then divide by the number of loaves each recipe makes, and you have your price per loaf.

Sounds much more complicated than it really is. Happy baking!

HINT FOR THE DAY: Add moisture while baking bread to ensure your bread doesn't dry out. The level of moisture in the oven is an important factor in achieving proper results. Moisture, in the form of steam, allows the bread to form a thin, golden crust while allowing the interior to remain soft and moist. The way I do this is to add a metal pan to the lowest rack of the oven while it's preheating. 2-3 minutes before I put the bread in to bake, add about a cup of water into the hot pan. This will immediately generate steam. Be careful not to let your skin be scalded by the steam. Then place the loaves in to bake.

CHECK THIS OUT!: I live by the all recipes website. Check this link out for thousands of bread recipes: http://allrecipes.com//Recipes/bread/Main.aspx

An ode to Earth Day

Today I am scrambling around my house trying to get it cleaned up before my husband comes home from his business trip. Floors need mopped, counters need scoured, etc. However, being pregnant, the noxious fumes from household chemicals give me a headache and make my nose burn. I've been sitting here trying to come up with something a little less evasive that won't make the house smell like a chemical factory.

The answer: Baking Soda!

Good ol' baking soda is good for more than school volcano projects or baking cookies. Baking soda, I've found, is one of the most versatile and environmentally safe cleaners out there. You can use it as an abrasive, in your laundry, as a deodorizer, a scrubbing paste, and much more. The best part is-you can buy several large boxes of baking soda for the cost of one bottle of multi-purpose spray cleaner that's chock full of chemicals.

Let me share with you all that I will be doing today using natural items from around the house:

*To clean out and deodorize your refrigerator, start by making a thick paste of baking soda and water. Empty the fridge and scoop up a small bit of paste and scrub the inside shelves and sidewalls. This will not only act as a mild abrasive to get that stubborn mess off, but it will double as a deodorizer.

*You can use this same past to clean stubborn sticky spots and stains off your counter tops, as well as to scour out and deodorize your kitchen sinks.

*This same paste works great on cleaning toilet ring and acting as a deodorizer.

*vinegar works great to dissolve the lime build up on shower heads. Take a quart-sized bag of vinegar, and secure it around the shower head. Allow to sit for several hours to overnight. When you take it off, the build up should be gone.

*coffee and tea are great for bringing out the natural shine in wood. Simply take a rag and dip it in the coffee or tea and rub it gently into your wooden tabletops. Afterwards, buff away with a clean, dry linen cloth to absorb the moisture. You'll be surprised at how just a little of that will make your wooden tabletops shine! Tea also works well for cleaning hardwood floors as well.

*Lemon juice works well as a stain remover for laundry. Especially for rust and fruit-based stains.

*sprinkle some plain baking soda in your carpet (make sure little hands/mouths can't get down to eat it). leave it for a couple of hours, then vacuum it up.

I can go on and on, but you get the hint. Next time skip the harsh chemicals and pick up a box of baking soda and a bottle of vinegar. For less than one bottle of chemical cleaner you can clean your whole house in an environmentally-friendly way. Happy Earth Day!

HINT FOR THE DAY: Greasy, grimy grill got you down? Take a piece of aluminum foil, and cover the grate, shiny side down. Turn on the grill for 10-15 minutes, then remove the foil. The greasy mess will be gone!

CHECK THIS OUT!: 75 fantastic uses for baking soda: http://lifehackery.com/2008/07/22/home-4/

Two chickens, $10.00

I apologize for the late start on getting some hints and tips out to you. I woke up yesterday morning, and my laptop decided to take a dive on me; today, our second computer quit all of a sudden. A quick shout out to my dad for letting me borrow a laptop until the IT department (a.k.a. my husband) gets home tomorrow evening.

So, let's talk chicken. Chicken is inexpensive, high in lean protein, and when prepared the right way, juicy and very flavorful, even the dark meat. I recently found out that that chicken legs are just a hair better for you than plain old chicken breasts (as long as you take the skin off). I was thrilled to hear this, as I find breast meat to be much too dry, where as dark meat is much more moist and tastes much better.

I went to the store the other day and bought two roasting chickens for $10. I took them home, cleaned out the neck and innards, brushed them very lightly with peanut oil (I prefer the taste of peanut oil with chicken, but you can use any oil), and seasoned them with S&P, garlic and onion powder. By bringing them home to roast them myself, I saved $4, as rotisserie chickens were being sold for $6.99 a piece. Sure, that doesn't sound like much, but it all adds up in the end. The preparation only took about 10 minutes. They came out 2.5 hours later looking like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting and smelling divine.

Out of these two chickens I was able to make the following:

*Roasted chicken and vegetables
*Chicken salad
*Thai noodles with chicken
*Chicken nachos
*Green salad with roasted chicken breast

After I had picked the bones clean, I took each carcass, including the skin, and some left over vegetable peelings, and threw them each into a separate pot and filled with cold water. I seasoned it with just some salt and a very light touch of white pepper (I used white because I didn't want little black flecks in my clear chicken broth), and brought the bones to a boil then turned it down to a low simmer for about 4 hours (occasionally skimming the foam off the top of the liquid). After simmering, I strained the broth and let it cool. At this point, I filled quart-sized bags with the cooled liquid, laid flat on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer. Make sure the bags are pre-labeled with the date so you know when the broth was made. I was able to make several quarts of broth from these two chickens as well. As you may be aware, a quart of broth at the store sells anywhere from $2.99-$3.99.

As you can see, nothing went to waste. Out of $10 worth of meat, I was able to get 5 meals and several quarts of broth. Keep your eye out for deals in the meat department. A lot of the time you can find chickens that are close to their "sell by" date that are being sold for less than $1.00 a pound. Buy them out, and throw them into your freezer. Or, cook the meat up right away, chop it up, and freeze it. Freeze the carcasses in gallon bags until you have time to render them into broth.

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures to share with you; if I am able to recover my laptop, I can post some later.

HINT FOR THE DAY: Save all your vegetable peelings and odds and ends that don't get used (except potatoes, as they are starchy, and tend to thicken; grind those up and thrown them in your gardens or flower beds). Throw them into the freezer in gallon-sized bags with the air squeezed out. When you have a bit of free time, turn them into a wonderful vegetable broth! Toss them in a pan with a light touch of olive oil and garlic, salt, and white pepper (remember, a little WP goes a long way). After lightly braising them to bring out their flavors, toss them in a pot with cold water. Again, bring to a boil then simmer for a few hours. Skim any foam, then strain, cool, and freeze to use for a later date.

CHECK THIS OUT!: http://www.growinca.org for tips on local, sustainable, and inexpensive ways to save on produce, meat, and dairy, while supporting local farmers.

Inaugural post

When I went to the gas station last week, I about had a heart attack when I saw that, for 19 gallons of gas, I just put $70 into my vehicle. I was stunned...and immediately started wondering how I was going to be able to afford to keep driving. And on top of that, because unfortunately driving is a necessary evil in our family, how was I going to be able to afford to pay for gas and put food on the table?

I casually mentioned how unbelievable it was, and how over the past few days I had sat down to take a look at our household expenses to see where we could cut out unnecessary spending. I was surprised to see how many responses I received on this subject; people saying the same thing.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that our economy is in the pots. Most of the country is having to make the same sacrifices due to greedy spending and squabbling fat cats on Capitol Hill. They're more interested in pushing their interests and lining their pockets than seeing how our country is suffering, and doing anything about it.

I chose the name of this blog, "Let them eat cake", because it seems to personify the state that this country is in. It is said (though not proven) that Queen Marie Antoinette said this in response to being told that peasants were rioting because they had no bread and were starving. Its overtones feel very appropriate for the time being.

So this being said, I have started this blog as a way to share how I am trimming my household budget, how to live more frugally, and to provide tips, hints, recipes, and suggestions as to how you can do the same. I look forward to doing this, and hopefully by doing so, helping others as well.