Welcome Back Lisa

Alright, so I've again failed at blogging, but I'm motivated now and all ready to make another attempt at it. There have been various things that I got excited about sharing, but never found the time to do so. So now I've escaped one of my weekly commitments for the next month, and am going to designate that time to focusing a few hours on school and some time towards sharing what is going on in our lives here.
We're all ready to start another no spend month here, so I figured it's the ideal time to start writing again. We're doing this no spend month a little different, we've got an absurd amount of random things in the freezer, so the focus this month is on clearing out the freezers and pantry as opposed to simply a non consumerism and money saving motivation. So I'm sorry, but if you're looking for great ways of saving money on food, my journey this time probably won't help too much. I looked at what we spent this month on groceries and was disgusted with the total, so that was also part of it. There is just no justifiable reason that a family of three needs to spend anywhere near $600 for food alone in the shortest month of the year. We're taking our total for what we spent on gas this month instead, and using that alone as our total spending goal. It just happens to be the same as what we designated as our goal for the last round. $250.
So the changes - J has got to learn to start taking the bus again. Lisa has to stop going to the grocery store every time she is bored and especially not when she is bored and hungry! And Kaylee is going to have to learn that she can't live her entire life eating nothing but popsicles, pancakes and blueberries. Nor will she get me to drive across the state just to go to play area, we're going to have to find something acceptable and entertaining to do around here, and probably me more than she will have to be content with that.
Another thing that may or may not be worth noting is my goal as part of lent and my need to regain a little of my health, to take my need for a rotation diet more seriously. This means we can't eat the same thing every day. The main things are going to be rotating grains and proteins, the fruits and veggies, I've decided are pretty much impossible with our limitations right now.
Speaking of limitations... We (Kaylee) can have turkey again, and the occasional potato. Yay! So that helps too. This is totally embarrassing to admit, but we have a Turkey in the deep freeze that has been there since before Kaylee was born, I'm almost afraid to cook it, but I'm going to try and see how it goes... hopefully the freezer burn will not be too bad after a good brine and roasting. I looked through and the dates on most everything else don't go pre 2007 so that's good, but still, there really shouldn't even be things in there from 2007! Ugh, I'm so disgusted with myself! Rotate, rotate, rotate, I think that might be my new mantra for this year.

Just in case anyone was wondering

the end of a decade

I woke up earlier this week with a swollen tongue. And in my routine cleaning of my tongue ring I found a little bit of green goo, so naturally I freaked out and decided I was going to die of an infection spreading from the goo into my blood and my life was completely over. So I took out my tongue ring and decided that that phase of my life is now over; and I'm okay with that. I had it for ten years, and that's a pretty good run for a random decision. Now my tongue is so light, it's crazy! I never realized that I had been lifting weights every time I talked, now I'm not.

Corn

I finally got to watch King Corn. Wow, we had just added corn back into our diet a few months ago, as Kaylee is now able to handle it pretty well. I'm not sure anymore how much I really want to keep it as a part of my diet though. I think I'd feel differently if it were a different variety of corn, like maybe the good unadulterated variety that still has nutritional value, and that we grow. But I think we're totally done buying any HFCS in anything, (not that we have for a long time but still) grain fed beef - even eating out isn't even close to being worth it, or non-organic corn products like chips. I just can't continue to be a contributing factor in supporting such an industry. It is so incredibly sad where this country is headed in terms of food. This is definitely another film that I think everyone should see.

Wrap up

I am happy to report that we survived our no spend month. It wasn't nearly as painful as I expected it to be, although the last day for some reason was somewhat rough, I had a crazy urge to make cookies and we had no brown sugar. I resisted since there really was no need for cookies, and we had $2.36 to spare at the end of it all. Our total for week four was $61.59. Gas was the big stress, I think when it comes down to it losing the extra hour each day with Jereriah since he was taking the bus was the hardest thing. It was also hard to stay home every day with Kaylee and only going out for walks around the neighborhood. We were getting a bit board of our books without a trip to the library and boarder lined on cabin fever a few days. I've got to get to sleep, so I'll post more soon on how this experience was overall, but I really feel that it was good for us, and it's something we'll probably do more than once a year... or maybe we'll just actually create and try to stick to a budget. One thing I know will hapen though is that we're doing away with the credit cards, they're going to continue to live in their storage locker. Although we'll take out the debit one, because trying to make deposits in an atm without an atm card when you've gotten to the bank to late and their night deposit box is locked for some reason can really bum you out. (especially because the bank is really far away!)

The world in which I live

A friend of mine posted this article on her blog and I had to post it as well, since I the truth of the article rings so true to me each day. This is the place I live in (or close to it) and the people I interact with every day. True we've now officially moved out of Boulder County but since J still works in Boulder and I'm doing MOPS and other things there, we always seem to find ourselves back there. We're actually thinking of trying to get farther away sometime soon, but that's a post for another day. Right now I'm still loving the beautiful uniqueness that is Boulder. Here's the article.
Best Outside Towns

Week Three

It's weird to me how fast money can just disappear. I somehow convinced myself that this challenge was no big deal and that we'd reach the end of the month with like $100 to spare or something. I think it is my innocence when it comes to purchasing gas. It costs a lot to go anywhere, and that's been the big lesson to me. The transportation for J to get to work, even if on the bus, is like just another tax to his income, it amazes me. This week as of the 23rd (I'm late writing this up) we spent $63.95, the cars needed some gas and the kitties needed food, that was a big one, almost half the expense. Granted it will last them through the next month an a half, but still.
I feel like food has been the easiest thing to alter/scale back on. And I have had a lot of fun getting a bit more creative in the kitchen. We always cook from scratch anyway, but I wonder why we haven't been doing some of this stuff before now. I have come to realize that I always have something soaking, and the crock pot is an indispensable tool. I've been experimenting with sprouting things (this is going to take more practice - I'm not good about changing water/rinsing), have continued to make granola, bread, and lots of other goodies. But the most fun one is making our own yogurt. We've done keifer before, with a starter, but the yogurt is a new one, and it's fun. No, I'm not eating it so I have no clue how it actually tastes, but J says it's good and since he goes through a lot of the stuff it's a huge savings to do it ourselves vs buying it. Next month we try making miso and experiment with other fermenting things... I just have to buy something to put it in.