Category Archives: DITL

Saving on Saturday

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This is the Saturday after Thanksgiving so today is definitely different than most Saturdays! But here are a couple of ways we are saving today.

  1.  I have pressure canned 15 quarts and 2 pints of turkey stock.
  2. We are eating left-overs in various ways and forms.  Leftover sandwiches have been the biggest hit, but I made turkey sliders for dinner today which were also good.  My goal is to base the menu plan next week on what is still in the fridge instead of shopping in the freezer so stay tune for Monday!
  3. We are using the decorations that we already have. I did spend $37 on new sheets for my bed. And I placed an Amazon order for tent stakes and ways to connect the lights to Alexa.  Total holiday decoration spending $70! I did decide to use the same tree as last year and we dug out more lights that have been sitting in the box for years instead of purchasing more!
  4. My goal is to limit spending for Christmas this year as we prefer to spend time together and have lots of experiences.  I “need” to order one more gift, purchase gift cards for my nieces and purchase the experience for Amanda which is likely around $250 in order to complete Christmas shopping!
  5. My plan is to limit Grocery spending in the month of December to items we need for celebrating. Then for January, February and March only purchase items we are completely out of and eat on a regular basis. I am thinking diary and fruit will be the main items.

5 Things Friday

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  1. Today is Veteran’s Day. We are being blessed by several friends and family members who have served in the military. So, it is important to us to say, “Thank you” and WE LOVE YOU!
  2. I had the day off work!  This is actually the first day that I have been at home since school started. Labor was spent in Florida and was a busy but fun time. Both the car and the Tahoe needed services appointments today and Zach had a doctor’s appointment.  Busy day off!
  3. We also experienced the second Tropical Storm this year. Not as much wind but several inches of rain have fallen. At least this time we have the automatic chicken door, so we did not have to worry about being outside.
  4. I have spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen today. I did go and purchase breakfast this morning. But I made stuffed green peppers for lunch.  For dinner Matt picked up a rotisserie chicken from Costco but I am a squash casserole, sweet potato casserole, stuffing and parmesan broccoli. This should give us several meal for the weekend. The chicken bones and skin are already in the crockpot for chicken broth that I plan to can tomorrow!
  5. It is snow village weekend!  The goal is to have the snow village assembled by Sunday! Here is a preview!

Saving on Saturday

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A constant theme for my blog has always been the rising cost of food!  I have managed to keep our average monthly spending on groceries to around $500 to $700 for many years even with two babies in diapers.  But wow this year, things are going crazy.   We purchased a whole cow, and the garden has set a record but that has not been enough to control the spending.  All five of us eat breakfast, lunch and dinner from our supplies most days. Lily is home and can use water or something here but everyone else takes drinks to work and school.  We made a trip to Costco at the first of October to purchase mainly drinks. I grabbed a package of bath tissue because well because. I spent a total of $448 for this trip. I am in total shock! So again, I am trying to focus on reducing/ maintaining the cost of food!

We have actually been working on emptying our freezers since September and I can finally see a difference. We can now arrange the vegetable freezer so that things are not falling out and we have most of the meat in the chest freezer. As I was grabbing beef broth, I realized we were almost out.  I did not have room for the bones when I ordered the cow and we don’t have any steaks with bones. I did find multiple packs of short ribs.  The plan is to make the short ribs today and then use the bones for broth to can tomorrow.    I can’t remember if I post that we ended up cleaning out the hall clothes of towels and sheets and made it a food storage cabinet mainly for canning!

We had at least two nights this week with the temperature below freezing, so last Saturday, I pulled all the green tomatoes inside and feed the vines to the chickens.  I ended up dicing up several that had ripened to use in our stuff green pepper soup planned for Sunday. And stewed the remained that were ripe for Taco pasta on Tuesday!  Using it before it goes to waste or chicken feed in this case.

We have a set of lights that is currently not working in the kitchen/ dining room. Matt has been spending time trying to locate the problem.  It is a time-consuming task but at $100 an hour for an electrician, it is definitely a money saving endeavor.

5 Things Friday

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  1. The weather:  We have had 2 nights with temperatures below freezing already!   I don’t like cold so it appears I will be going into hibernation soon.
  2. We received our Electric bill for the month of October. It is $153!  This is the lowest it has been since October 2020!  Yes I checked!
  3. Our best purchase so far for the chickens has been the automatic door. The chickens are going up at night and we don’t have to worry about something getting to them.  It opens at daylight and closes at dark. We are still checking on it since we discovered that it was closed accidently one evening this week.
  4. Kendall has decided that she will swim on the school swim team.  This is a huge first step for her!  She even had to approach the coach on her own to get the information!
  5. Zach missed two days of school this week due to being sick. I am glad we had a couple of extra COVID test. It was negative and he is old enough to stay at home without the need for an adult present to watch him sleep.

Five Things Friday

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  1. The weather is so strange this year. We kept the air conditioning on until the first day of fall (9/21). Since that day we have not had a hard freeze, but the temperature has stayed below 70 degree most days. Today was 80 and tomorrow is forecasted to be 58*. We have turned on the heat and I am just hoping to keep the bill as low as possible. The good news is that our house holds heat, so we are very fortunate that way.
  2. Tomorow, we have a college visit with Lily. Decisions are hard and some just appear to be impossible College is a huge decision and honestly, I think that it is a little more difficult for Lily.
  3. I am absolutely LOVING my digital pressure canner!  I have been purchasing jars as I find them.  I have already canned 5 pints of split pea soup, broth, red beans, white beans and pear sauce.
  4. In true Give a Mouse a Cookie fashion, I now need to find a better storage area for the cans. After thinking about it. I am going to clean out the hall closet, move all the food to it and have Matt add some shelves so that we can store lots of stuff!
  5. I have one more week at work before the new person starts. “I think I can, I think I can…..

5 Things Friday

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  1. School officially starts Monday. Lily is a senior at Davie County High School and completed her second year at DDCC for her associates degree. Kendall is a freshman at Central Davidson High School and Zach is a 7th grader at CDMS.  3 kids at 3 different schools.  I am starting my 5th year at Davie County Schools.
  2. We have a couple of quick trips plan during the month of September. Both are going to be using the camper. This makes things much much easier as we can pack in advance!
  3. The first week back at work full time has been busy and stressful. I am hoping to establish a good routine over the next couple of weeks.
  4. Zach will be playing in his first football scrimmage tomorrow…not sure how I feel about it.
  5. We are finally getting green beans and cucumbers from our garden!!!! Been waiting all summer for these!

5 Things Friday

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  1. I was able to plant my fall garden today. It consisted of 2 types of lettuce, broccoli and cabbage.  I am planning to plant a batch of carrots when the sweet potatoes are dug up. I think we are at the end of the tomato run but anticipate one to two tomatoes a week for until the end of September. I may have enough green beans to make a meal out of the third round of green beans I planted. We also are getting cucumbers and squash! This has probably been the best garden we have ever had.
  2. The chickens have learned to climb up and down the ramp to the coop independently after 2 days. We are still working on getting them to go up at night but hopefully this will happen in a couple of days. I did decide to add a water container to the coop at night. I just want to make sure that they can drink if they don’t realize it is time to be locked up.
  3. Zach is currently playing football at the middle school. Games will be on Wednesday.
  4. I survived my first day back at work. I know that I am going to be fairly busy this year but it is good to have a routine.
  5. We are hoping to finish up the new cabinet in the dining room this weekend. I will have to spend a chunk of time rearranging to make things appear less cluttered and more functional.

5 Things Friday

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  1.  This is my final week of Summer Break!  Lily actually starts college classes on Monday. I go back to work next Friday with Zach and Kendall actually returning to school on the 29th!  We do have a quick Disney trip plan so that makes things a little easier.
  2. The chickens have received an upgrade housing with total out of pocket expense of ZERO!  I am going to share pictures and plans Tomorow.
  3. I have been selling items on both Facebook marketplace and ebay. We currently need $14 to cover the cost of a new sunshade!
  4. We have a small list of things that I need to accomplish in the next week including, oil change for Tahoe, ordering glasses and contacts and a good stock up Costco trip.
  5. The garden is really slowing down.  I froze tomato sauce on Monday and will likely freeze some diced tomatoes today.  I am really excited to also pick several cucumebers!

5 Things Friday

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  1.  Shout out to myself!  This is the 8th day in a row that I have posted! And the 5th post for the month of August on the 5th!
  2. I am finally feeling back to normal this week which means I am starting to catch up on all the things I planned to do this summer!  This really does help my mood and energy level to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
  3. We are continuing to harvest from the garden! This week, I planted some pumpkins and have hopes to start a fall garden including lettuce and spinach in the next couple of days!  We are also starting to plant some things in the chicken coop area which will make it both pretty and functional!
  4. I have been wanting to list things on Marketplace and Ebay all summer and today was the official day to complete. I have 5 active listing on Ebay and 7 on Facebook marketplace. I know we have at least 2 additional listing to make on Marketplace tonight.  The goal for this clean out is $250 to purchase a pop-up sunshade for beach use next year.
  5. The chickens are continuing to grow. We have turned off the heat light. The book we have been following said to start decreasing their constant temperature by 5 degree this week. The set point would be 75*. The air in our house is currently set at 74 for the day and 72 at night.   So we decided to go ahead and try without the lamp.  They did great last night so I am going to continue. We also are trying to get them outside at least a couple of hours a day right now. I hope to move to daytime outside next week with full time outside the next week.  Because it is summertime, this is a much quicker and easier process. Even when going outside full time the plan is to have them in a coop each night just to start that training process. A very sad update, this afternoon one of the chickens (Gummy) died.  We had been watching her closely today as she moved to the corner and was sleeping.  Not quite sure why it happened but we cleaned and cleaned the cage so hopefully this will be the only lost.

Every Bit Counts

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One of the YouTube channels I really enjoy “3 Rivers Homestead” has this challenge for the month of August.  It is specifically for preserving food for the winter. I know that when I return to work in two weeks that this might not be possible, so I started this challenge a week early. For more information read here Monday Musings

Tuesday July 26th- Sloppy Joes
Wednesday July 27th- Taco Meat
Thursday July 28th- Salisbury Steak
Friday July 29th- Made a second batch of Salsa
Saturday July 30th-Shredded Zucchini and Squash
Sunday July 31st- Made protein muffins with remaining ham and eggs.
Monday August 1st- Spaghetti Sauce
Tuesday August 2nd- Additional Chicken pot pie filling- will need to only add crust.
Wednesday August 3rd- 4 dozen ears of corn some frozen with husk on and some off and 2 packages off the cob.
Thursday August 4th- 2 bags of carrots from our garden.

I am very excited with moving forward.

Official food preparation count: 58
Breakfast count : 20
Spaghetti Sauce: 25…… I am going to work on doing a couple of batches of salsa but may also add another batch of spaghetti sauce in the future depending on how the tomatoes continue to produce!

I do have plans for sausage balls and banana muffins this week as well!