Clutter Costs

Clutter costs money, time, energy, and happiness Money: misplaced bills cost late fees, misplaced library books cost fines, etc. Time: digging through clutter takes a lot of it. Energy: digging through clutter takes a lot of it (again). Happiness: who likes digging through junk and losing stuff?

Advice: get rid of the junk; keep the important stuff organized; after you use it put it away; after you pay it, file it; if it gets dirty, go ahead an clean it and put it away; and last but not least: STOP LETTING THE CLUTTER IN TO BEGN WITH!!(of course, this is the most difficult to do, especially if you live with others:)

Bread

With the exponentially fast rise in the price of wheat, I urge people to try your hand at making your own bread at home. It tastes better, you get to control the quality of the ingredients, and it generally costs about 80% less than the store bought kind. I was at Sam's Club last week and a 25lb. bag of bread flour cost about 10.50. It only takes about 3 cups of bread flour to make one 9x5 loaf of bread. Yeast was about 4.30 for 2lbs and it only takes about a teaspoon per loaf. Most people add a little salt, usually around 1teaspoon per loaf and some add sugar, again about a teaspoon per loaf. And the water is such a small amount it won't even count. Now, I am not mathmatician, but I think that all adds up to about 0.35 per loaf, and baking doesn't take long either, and if you do not want to heat up your oven just for bread, then just make it when you're making something in the oven anyway, and make more than one loaf at the time, and just freeze the extra loaves.

Moisturizer

This may be a bit of a stretch for some people, but I'm very oily skinned, so this works really well for me. I buy oil free facial moisturizers, which are about 90% water, and I add more water to it to do a couple of things: 1) thin it out because I am a habitual over-applier which means I waste it and end up with an over moisturized face (not good for an oily girl), 2) make it last about an extra month.

Like I said, this in one of those things that's not up everyone's alley, but that's okay, it's all about ideas!

Deli Meat

Problem: price, at $5.99/lb who can afford more than a couple of shavings on a sandwich.
Solution: slice your own. Bulk ham is about 1.59/lb, bulk turkey (for slicing) about 2.99/lb.

If you don't have your own meat slicer, I wouldn't go out and buy one especially for this, but if you know someone with one they would like to part with, or find one at a yard sale or thrift shop - go for it. I can thinly slice a 5lb. ham in about 6 minutes, the I separate it out into 1lb stacks and use my foodsaver to freeze it and keep the frost off.

Spices

A few notes on this: $4 a pop at the grocer, $1 a pop at the Dollar Tree, CVS, Family Dollar, Dollar General, etc. Just think it over. If you are making sauce and you need oregano, basil and then garlic salt for the bread, that's roughly $12 at the grocer (big dent in the grocery budget) and $3 at the 'dollar' stores (just a ping in the grocery budget). I personally find the ones at CVS to have more potent flavor, easy flip shaker tops, glass bottles, larger sizes and more variety.

Browsing Online

When you have a few minutes of computer time, try to look up the websites of your favorite brands in addition to any general coupon printing sites. For instance, the Betty Crocker websites gives you printable coupons that you can't get at coolsavings, coupons.com and the like. Also try horizon organic and stonyfield farms. You can get excellent money saving coupons with just a couple of minutes effort.

How we got here

Holy cow! I went to the grocery store today prepared, and it was a good thing. Not only is gas through the proverbial roof, but food is rising too. I needed brown sugar, but the 1lb bag at Food Lion which is usually $.59 is now $.93, about 45% more. A 1lb. block of Kraft cheese is $5.39. Milk is still high, $4.19 at Food Lion, $3.99 at Harris Teeter. So what's a mom to do? Well, I created this blog to discuss that very thing: saving money, playing the money game, meal planning, creating new meals with leftovers, home cooking, etc, etc, etc. So please, join in and leave your comments, recipes, ideas, suggestions, thoughts on the matter.