How does one save money on food and toiletries? With four kids and usually friends and neighbors over our groceries disappear fast. In our time together we have been through all levels on the grocery budget. Here are some ideas you can use to eat healthy and save money. There is a lot of info in my past blogs also that I won't include here. So read those too. Some will fit your life and some may not, pick and choose.
1. Go vegetarian or semi- vegetarian. Meat is costly to eat and produce. Producing meat cost the environment greatly. Gradually reduce you're consumption, soon you won't miss it. My family used to complain daily, now I rarely hear anything. Some meatless ideas: whole grain pasta with veggies and sauce, grilled cheese and tomato soup, high protein pancakes, cheese pizza on whole grain crust, bean burritos, guacamole tostada's and wraps made with cream cheese and veggies (add a little Spike seasoning): YUMMY.
2. Organics are getting cheaper, if you can purchase them on sale do so. Store brand organics are widely available now. Still buy in season. At present organic blue berries and raspberries are the same price as non-organic at Kroger.
3. Reduce packaging use less paper products (use rags) and highly packaged foods. When we travel I pack cups and ice water plus a soft cooler of fruit, nuts and crackers.
4. Go to your farmers market.
Buy local. Buy from road side produce stands. Stock up on sweet potatoes, fall squash, anything that you can freeze, can, or store for winter.
6. Keep powdered milk and add it to your regular milk. I buy organic milk 50% of the time. Due to the huge increase in milk prices I have had to cut back on my kids consumption. I serve more decaf tea, homemade lemonade, ice water and juice. Some brands of tea bags work really well twice, meaning you can get two pitchers of tea by reboiling them. Remember to compost them.
This works with coffee also. Day one make coffee the regular way, then save the grounds. Day two add half as much coffee to the previous days grounds and add the same amount of water as you did on day one. You save half the amount of coffee you would have used and I swear you cannot tell the difference. Compost those grounds!!!
7. Only purchase cereals that are on sale and have at least two grams or more of fiber per serving and look on the top and bottom shelves for these. Its best to do away with boxed cereal all together if you are on a budget. Oatmeal is much less expensive.
8. If its sliced or diced or chilled for you its probably more expensive. Chop your own veggies and cheese. Make your own cereal.
9. Two of my favorite books for grocery help are
The Tightwad Gazette and More With Less.
10. Add beans, whole grains, fresh fruit and veggies. Drink water. If you live in Hot Springs you have no excuse for not drinking good water.
11. Go to the library and learn how to cook EASY & HEALTHY. I am met with resistance all the time that healthy eating is expensive and hard. It's not if you educate yourself. Disease is expensive and hard. Health is worth every penny.
Namaste'
Courtney
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
More tips for our planet
1. Use cloth napkins. Use rags to clean. Reduce your use of paper towels.Even recycled paper towels end up in land fills. I do compost these if they are not bleached.
2. Give gifts of time, service, tickets to events museums and gardens etc....
3. Vacation close to home.
4. Use both sides of paper and only buy recycled computer paper.
5. Limit evenings and weekends away from home so you have more down time.
6. Hang some laundry: this is really theraputic.
7. Cook from scratch.
8. Say "yes" consiously.
9. Sit up straight, take a deep breath and count four counts in and exhale six counts out, imagine breathing into you navel and empty your breath completley.
10. Stand up reach up like you want to touch the sky and then fold at your hip joint ( where your hips and legs connects) then hang like a rag doll. Stay here and let tension drain from your back then come up slow with your chin down to avoid dizziness. (do not do if you have high blood pressure or glaucoma)
2. Give gifts of time, service, tickets to events museums and gardens etc....
3. Vacation close to home.
4. Use both sides of paper and only buy recycled computer paper.
5. Limit evenings and weekends away from home so you have more down time.
6. Hang some laundry: this is really theraputic.
7. Cook from scratch.
8. Say "yes" consiously.
9. Sit up straight, take a deep breath and count four counts in and exhale six counts out, imagine breathing into you navel and empty your breath completley.
10. Stand up reach up like you want to touch the sky and then fold at your hip joint ( where your hips and legs connects) then hang like a rag doll. Stay here and let tension drain from your back then come up slow with your chin down to avoid dizziness. (do not do if you have high blood pressure or glaucoma)
Thoughts from some readings
Gandhi said "There is enough in the world for man's need, but not for man's greed".
Recently facilitating a course on Voluntary Simplicity has made me see my needs and wants in a different light. Now we still consume but our buying is more conscious. Next weekend our new couch comes in. This is the second piece of new furniture we have bought in seventeen years together. Our home has been blessed with some really nice hand me downs and good second hand finds. With new awareness I want to get rid of having a lot of stuff and instead have only a few nice quality things. My daughter recently lost a purse her birth mother gave her and she was so upset. I took her for a walk and said if I die that car over there (my car) is not me its just a thing. Things are not people, people live in our hearts when they are not with us.
Now I believe in having some mementos and I myself have some things I am not using that I need to get rid of. Its hard because they were my grandparents but I have decided that as we clean I will keep only what I can display or use. All of the things wrapped in paper from 1984 that I have hauled around for years may have to go.
There is a Buddhist belief that letting go of things and giving them to someone who needs it is empowering and uplifting to the giver. I am trying to realize that someone else can cherish those things as well if not better than me.
Namaste'
Courtney
Recently facilitating a course on Voluntary Simplicity has made me see my needs and wants in a different light. Now we still consume but our buying is more conscious. Next weekend our new couch comes in. This is the second piece of new furniture we have bought in seventeen years together. Our home has been blessed with some really nice hand me downs and good second hand finds. With new awareness I want to get rid of having a lot of stuff and instead have only a few nice quality things. My daughter recently lost a purse her birth mother gave her and she was so upset. I took her for a walk and said if I die that car over there (my car) is not me its just a thing. Things are not people, people live in our hearts when they are not with us.
Now I believe in having some mementos and I myself have some things I am not using that I need to get rid of. Its hard because they were my grandparents but I have decided that as we clean I will keep only what I can display or use. All of the things wrapped in paper from 1984 that I have hauled around for years may have to go.
There is a Buddhist belief that letting go of things and giving them to someone who needs it is empowering and uplifting to the giver. I am trying to realize that someone else can cherish those things as well if not better than me.
Namaste'
Courtney
Sunday, July 15, 2007
more ideas for a healthy planet
1. Subscribe to Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening.
2. Use vinegar or boiling water to kill weeds, works great in the driveway.
3. Use a mix of Borax and baking soda as a scouring powder, this stuff works great.
4. Purchase natural flea and tick repellents along with using Brewers Yeast in your dog and cat food. Add a little Flax seed oil for a shiny coat.
5. Soap and water cleans most anything, especially good on carpets and upholstery.
6. See my blog on composting, even if you don't use the dirt you should make a compost pile to reduce your methane gas emissions.
7. Go vegetarian or semi veg. Meat and Milk are the most important things you can buy organic. Cattle, chickens and hogs put out mass amounts of methane gas. The rain forest is being cut down to make more grazing land for cattle. Indigenous people have to walk further and further to find needed wood for fuel and their water is polluted by to much run off of animal feces.
All of the antibiotics and hormones get into our bodies and cause us to get fat, estrogen dominance is a common problem in why girls are hitting puberty younger and younger. My daughter was raised in foster care until we adopted her last year, she had a horrible diet. She hit puberty at a young age nine. Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Namaste'
Courtney
2. Use vinegar or boiling water to kill weeds, works great in the driveway.
3. Use a mix of Borax and baking soda as a scouring powder, this stuff works great.
4. Purchase natural flea and tick repellents along with using Brewers Yeast in your dog and cat food. Add a little Flax seed oil for a shiny coat.
5. Soap and water cleans most anything, especially good on carpets and upholstery.
6. See my blog on composting, even if you don't use the dirt you should make a compost pile to reduce your methane gas emissions.
7. Go vegetarian or semi veg. Meat and Milk are the most important things you can buy organic. Cattle, chickens and hogs put out mass amounts of methane gas. The rain forest is being cut down to make more grazing land for cattle. Indigenous people have to walk further and further to find needed wood for fuel and their water is polluted by to much run off of animal feces.
All of the antibiotics and hormones get into our bodies and cause us to get fat, estrogen dominance is a common problem in why girls are hitting puberty younger and younger. My daughter was raised in foster care until we adopted her last year, she had a horrible diet. She hit puberty at a young age nine. Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Namaste'
Courtney
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Just tips today
Random tips for the environment.
1. If you are in a 401K or have investments look at putting a large part of your money into Social and Environmental Choice Funds. This has worked out very good for us and I feel like it is a huge investment we can give to the cause for the long term.
2. Add Brewers Yeast (about 2Tbsp. a day) to your cat & dog food it works great to keep the fleas off. I am amazed.
3. Plant more and more of your yard with edibles. They provide food for you and the yard critters.
4. Plant: Bay leaves to discourage roaches, Ants hate spearmint, tansy, southernwood, and other mints.
5. Use these flowers in your gardens to act as natural pesticides: marigolds, zinnias, sunflowers.
6. Pour your soapy dishwater on your plants, it keeps bugs off and conserves water.
Namaste'
Courtney
1. If you are in a 401K or have investments look at putting a large part of your money into Social and Environmental Choice Funds. This has worked out very good for us and I feel like it is a huge investment we can give to the cause for the long term.
2. Add Brewers Yeast (about 2Tbsp. a day) to your cat & dog food it works great to keep the fleas off. I am amazed.
3. Plant more and more of your yard with edibles. They provide food for you and the yard critters.
4. Plant: Bay leaves to discourage roaches, Ants hate spearmint, tansy, southernwood, and other mints.
5. Use these flowers in your gardens to act as natural pesticides: marigolds, zinnias, sunflowers.
6. Pour your soapy dishwater on your plants, it keeps bugs off and conserves water.
Namaste'
Courtney
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Money, feeling good about it
My relationship with money has always been tumultuous. Its been a love hate relationship for as long as I can remember. The power I felt always laid in the green back and and the guilt was on me. Being primarily raised by grandparents who endured "The Depression" I always thought
we had very little money, then they died when I was twenty two and I found out differently.
They left me and mom a nice sum and it took me from having to work to being able to stay home with my kids. The amount I received was doled out over four years and was equal to what my work income had been: with God there are no coincidences. We had to live very frugally to make it work because now we had extra expenses with a new baby and two more to come over the next three and a half years. That frugality enabled us to put sweat equity into our home. This came in handy when my my husband decided to go back to school. With his parents help and the equity in our home Blake quit his job and went back to school. We took out $30,000 from our home equity and his parents graciously gave us serious monetary help for the next two years.
We were so determined to make it work that I dared not be excessive in my spending. Our clothes were resell, consignment, and clearance items. The food we ate was supplemented my the federal WIC program, which I was so ashamed of. Many meals were made out of those groceries of milk, cereal,eggs, peanut butter and beans. Being primarily vegetarian eight years of my young life came in pretty handy when cooking from these items. I am proud to say that because of all of this frugality and graciousness from family and the government we never paid a bill late and now our life is so much better, while not rich we are secure that we can put food on the table.
Fast forward seven years, my husband went on to complete a further degree. I was certified as a yoga teacher (I finished up three associate degrees when the kids were younger). Blake has moved up quickly at work and now is head of his Dept. at the college. Our salary increased by about 4 times what it was before college. We adopted child number four and live comfortably while not excessivly. Through it all we have made some mistakes and have learned a great deal about the energy we put behind our money.
Recently after viewing the movie " The Secret" I came to realize I still had a mindset of poverty. I was living like we still had to eat beans. Now I did not agree with everything in this movie but I got that if I focused on doing without, money would still have power over me. Due to my belief in being resourceful and conserving the worlds resources I could not just start buying overly packaged food and buy a big gas guzzler to drive. What I did was set up an automatic payment plan for our debt paying about double the minimum balance. I decided to put our money into things that add value to our lives like organic food, hiring someone to help me clean twice a month, and using our resources to live a life in line with our values. It became clear to me that I thought people who had money didn't care for the earth and were wasteful. Now I realize that with what we have we can help make this planet better for everyone. Now I eat beans because I want to and drive my nine year old van because it meets my needs perfectly.
Getting people out of poverty and educating them is a way out. Suppressing the poor and having a mindset of poverty will never let one live a full life.
We are an example of a family that needed a leg up. Without help from our family and the government we would never be able to be were we are now. As a caring society it is important that we use our money and our voting power to support education, healthcare, tolerance, and support for our poor.
Tips:
1. Learning to live without is a great lesson. With every purchase you make consider if you need it and how it might effect someone else's life. For instance buying produce only from the U.S. where we have laws in place to support fair wages. Avoid over packaging. Just because you have money does not mean that you need the new Widget, put your money where it makes a difference in someone else's life.
2. Give: Happiness comes from giving. It may be your time, a hug, a compliment, or money. It's easy to give money when you have it, it's harder to give your time. God always seems to multiply what you give. Try it with faith and see what happens. We all have gifts to give. Think of what you have to offer in service to humanity.
3. If you are in debt then set up an automatic payment plan that you can live with. For us using online banking makes this easy we have it automatically transferred on pay day. This is enormously empowering.
4. Live within your means. For example your house payment should be no more than 33% of your gross income. If you can find a home that is 25% of your net on a 15 year mortgage. You will be amazed at how fast you pay this off. Remember the bank may want to give you more money than you need. We got in this predicament (because our credit was so good) and it was so hard to get out. They gave us a loan based on 50% of our gross at 30 years, we could not sustain it and by Gods grace were able to get out. We are happy now with our 15 year note and owe much less now. Our debt to income on the mortgage is about 22% of our net. We built on (modestly) to accomodate the child we adopted and with our new loan our debt to income will be 33% of our net.
5. We have a huge grocery bill because we have four kids and three animals, I want them to eat healthy so I buy lots of produce and less cheap processed foods. Spend your money on things with feelings, and things of service to increase your happiness.
Namaste'
Courtney
we had very little money, then they died when I was twenty two and I found out differently.
They left me and mom a nice sum and it took me from having to work to being able to stay home with my kids. The amount I received was doled out over four years and was equal to what my work income had been: with God there are no coincidences. We had to live very frugally to make it work because now we had extra expenses with a new baby and two more to come over the next three and a half years. That frugality enabled us to put sweat equity into our home. This came in handy when my my husband decided to go back to school. With his parents help and the equity in our home Blake quit his job and went back to school. We took out $30,000 from our home equity and his parents graciously gave us serious monetary help for the next two years.
We were so determined to make it work that I dared not be excessive in my spending. Our clothes were resell, consignment, and clearance items. The food we ate was supplemented my the federal WIC program, which I was so ashamed of. Many meals were made out of those groceries of milk, cereal,eggs, peanut butter and beans. Being primarily vegetarian eight years of my young life came in pretty handy when cooking from these items. I am proud to say that because of all of this frugality and graciousness from family and the government we never paid a bill late and now our life is so much better, while not rich we are secure that we can put food on the table.
Fast forward seven years, my husband went on to complete a further degree. I was certified as a yoga teacher (I finished up three associate degrees when the kids were younger). Blake has moved up quickly at work and now is head of his Dept. at the college. Our salary increased by about 4 times what it was before college. We adopted child number four and live comfortably while not excessivly. Through it all we have made some mistakes and have learned a great deal about the energy we put behind our money.
Recently after viewing the movie " The Secret" I came to realize I still had a mindset of poverty. I was living like we still had to eat beans. Now I did not agree with everything in this movie but I got that if I focused on doing without, money would still have power over me. Due to my belief in being resourceful and conserving the worlds resources I could not just start buying overly packaged food and buy a big gas guzzler to drive. What I did was set up an automatic payment plan for our debt paying about double the minimum balance. I decided to put our money into things that add value to our lives like organic food, hiring someone to help me clean twice a month, and using our resources to live a life in line with our values. It became clear to me that I thought people who had money didn't care for the earth and were wasteful. Now I realize that with what we have we can help make this planet better for everyone. Now I eat beans because I want to and drive my nine year old van because it meets my needs perfectly.
Getting people out of poverty and educating them is a way out. Suppressing the poor and having a mindset of poverty will never let one live a full life.
We are an example of a family that needed a leg up. Without help from our family and the government we would never be able to be were we are now. As a caring society it is important that we use our money and our voting power to support education, healthcare, tolerance, and support for our poor.
Tips:
1. Learning to live without is a great lesson. With every purchase you make consider if you need it and how it might effect someone else's life. For instance buying produce only from the U.S. where we have laws in place to support fair wages. Avoid over packaging. Just because you have money does not mean that you need the new Widget, put your money where it makes a difference in someone else's life.
2. Give: Happiness comes from giving. It may be your time, a hug, a compliment, or money. It's easy to give money when you have it, it's harder to give your time. God always seems to multiply what you give. Try it with faith and see what happens. We all have gifts to give. Think of what you have to offer in service to humanity.
3. If you are in debt then set up an automatic payment plan that you can live with. For us using online banking makes this easy we have it automatically transferred on pay day. This is enormously empowering.
4. Live within your means. For example your house payment should be no more than 33% of your gross income. If you can find a home that is 25% of your net on a 15 year mortgage. You will be amazed at how fast you pay this off. Remember the bank may want to give you more money than you need. We got in this predicament (because our credit was so good) and it was so hard to get out. They gave us a loan based on 50% of our gross at 30 years, we could not sustain it and by Gods grace were able to get out. We are happy now with our 15 year note and owe much less now. Our debt to income on the mortgage is about 22% of our net. We built on (modestly) to accomodate the child we adopted and with our new loan our debt to income will be 33% of our net.
5. We have a huge grocery bill because we have four kids and three animals, I want them to eat healthy so I buy lots of produce and less cheap processed foods. Spend your money on things with feelings, and things of service to increase your happiness.
Namaste'
Courtney
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