MON: Day 5- January 5th

Today was a shopping day! But I stayed in my $25 budget and by grocery gaming I ended up getting $52 worth of items. I >heart< Meijers! $23.45 spent.

1 bag big carrots, 1 bag baby carrots, 2 celery, 1 bag of onions, 3 bags of spinach, 2 bags of premade salad, 1 bag of coleslaw, 4 cans of Campbells tomato soup, 4 cans of Campbells Healthy Select soup, a gallon of milk, bottle of V8 juice, 2 boxes of electrsol (This was my coop buy- Regularly $3.69, on sale for $3.00, and had 2 coupons for $2.50 off-so, $0.50 a box!) and a 2 pound chuck roast. We will be having Roast with veggies tomorrow and salad with hard boiled eggs for lunches.

Lunch: left overs
Dinner: I actually am not sure what they had because I had overtime and was into work by 5:30.

The chickens only laid one egg today. I'm pretty sure it's because of the light. The light had (I thought) burnt out. They need 12-14 hours of light to lay. The boy climbed into the coop at some point while I was napping and discovered the bulb was just loose and tightened it, so the girls have light again. Hopefully tomorrow we will be back to 3-4 eggs.

MON Day 3&4

I don't remember what we ate on Saturday-or most of Sunday. Although I do know that Sunday dinner was a BOY's dream! We had hotdogs and sourkraut, baked beans, macaroni & Cheese (homemade-not from a box), and baked potatoes.

I know on Saturday I made Pumpkin Crunch...oh now I remember, we had rotini pasta, frozen cauliflower/broccoli/carrots, and spaghetti sauce all mixed together and homemade bread made into garlic toast.

I SPENT NO MONEY!!! HORRAY! WHA-HOO!

We got 3 eggs on Saturday the 3rd and 1 on Sunday. Apparently it was a day of rest. :)

Boy started back to choir at church and will be auditioning for the spring musical on the 10th. I'll have to buy a CD of the music at some point this month and that will be $2.50.

January 2nd: Month of Nothing

Today I went returning. Now I would like to say that by returning I have extra money to put into the fund...but that is not the case. I am going to have to do better on that!

Returned shirt to Old Navy...$8.03 back onto the card....went next door to Michaels and put $10.62 on the card (Zachary has a birthday party later this month, I did find things for gifts at 50%-6o% off)

Returned pants to Walmart...$16.01 back...Bought slippers to replace lost ones. $9.50. Bought Bananas, gum, 1 green pepper, air freshener, and a can of sourkraut (it was a quarter!!) OH, and 4 rolls of Christmas wrapping paper for $1.25.

So over all I spent: $10.59
Running Tally $15.93-I am done for the week!

Eggs laid today: 4!!
January Egg total: 5

Breakfast: Cold cereal for Boy, I think Man had potato chips and coffee (yes, we need to work on this) I had to work the night before so I slept.
Lunch: Cane's chicken fingers and fries.....WHOA you say...that looks like dining out, well, yes, technically it was except it was a mystery shop, so I will be reimbursed for it at the end of the month.
Dinner: Made homemade bread, Hamberger Helper, and 1/2 green pepper for man.

January 1st: Month of Nothing

OK, today we did alright on our challenge...kinda.

Breakfast..cold cereal
Lunch...snacked on leftovers from New Years Eve
Dinner...Country Pork Spare Ribs, Cooked Cabbage (which I burn...how do you burn a boiled vegetable??), Brown Rice and Red Beans.

I spent $5.34 at Kroger for 2 heads of cabbage (only used and burnt--arg!) one, the ribs, and hmm...now I can't remeber the third thing...I know it was a vegetable.....oh well...something else.


Running tally: $5.34

Today we only got one egg. Last month from 12/12/08-12/31/08, the girls laid an impressive 61 eggs!!!

OHH! And Boy knocked out one of his bottom teeth (it was loose) while I was at the grocery store. Other details of the day, we enjoyed a roaring fire in the quiet room.

Happy New Year! May 2009 SHINE!

Well, 2008 definitely was not the best...but then again it wasn't the VERY worst! :)

I love New Years Eve (despite having to work this year--UG! at least I was able to run home and kiss my guys at midnight before running back to work!) I like making resolutions and those who know me, know that I set unreasonably high goals and then knock myself around for not achieving them...so in that light....

No really, I've tried to be more reasonable, but still have high expectations.

I don't know if God will have us moving as we hope. As Man pointed out today, we've lived in our current home longer than anywehere else we've lived in our 16 years of marriage (almost 17) but it's not been lack of trying. We've been trying to move for over 3 years now, but His all-knowing hand has come in at the last minute to save us from ourselves. So I still pray this will the year that we move somewhere. But in the meantime, we need to do with what we have so here are the "HOMESTEAD RESOLUTIONS"

1. Improvements and updates as we can afford to make the place more sellable.
2. Add 3 more chickens and start selling eggs.
3. Aggressively working on our debt. (We are so overstrapped!!Stupid surgery--no not really, I'm grateful that I now can walk again!)
4. Eating more homemade / homestead food.
5. Blog regularly...(daily?!?)

With resolution 3 & 4 (and 5), my plan is something I saw on a magazine and then found a blog of someone who did it. So we are going to have "Month-of-Nothing" and "Month-of-Half" What this means is in the Month-of-Nothing (mon) we will spend essentially nothing. This goes for food, gas, etc... Now I realize this is a fairly unrealistic goal as our normal monthly for this type of stuff is about $250 (and know that we do not go out to dinner and movies, rent movies, etc) So we are 'allowed' $25 each week. I've been grocery gaming so we have a fairly good pantry and freezer full. The $25 will also be if there are grocery game deals that are just too good to pass on. We can carry over from previous weeks. We have essentially $3.25 per day, so on weeks like this one where there are only 3 days...it's a $10 week. And on the MOH (Month of half) it won't really be half...I'm going to allow $50...with a bit of play upto $65 per week. This is the game plan, keep tuned in to see how we do. I'll be posting on here for accountablity.

January-Month of Nothing
February-Month of Half
March-Restock Month
April-Month of Nothing
May-Month of Half
June-Restocking Month
July-Month of Nothing
August-Month of Nothing (HARVEST MONTH!)
September-Month of Half
October-Restocking Month
November-Month of Half
December-Month of Half

You can also follow some of my personal resolutions (my faith, faithbooking, and scrapbooking ones HERE.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Go and Celebrate the REAL Reason for the Season!

JESUS

JUMBOS!!!

We are LOVING having Chickens! It's currently 15 degrees out and was only 2 degrees overnight. But apparently the girls don't mind the cold weather!

This morning, MAN and BOY managed to polish off 7 eggs just between the two of them. I was a bit concerned because I am making Christmas Sunrise Strata - and it needs 6-8 eggs. But within a few hours, we got 3 SUPER JUMBOS...and I mean JUMBOS! I'm guessing 3 yokes.

First is a normal Large Buffy egg between "Star" eggs.....

Then we have yesterday's Arica Egg next to today's Arica egg! YIKES!

Finally, we have our egg carton with the new eggs is back position 1, 3, and 6. No, they don't even fit in the holes!

More Egg Pictures!

So How fun is this...
5 days worth of effort on the girls' part = 14 eggs.















I told the MAN and BOY that they could have eggs after I got my first dozen. So this morning, we had eggs!


The first Americauna egg was a double yolk, as I had suspected.














And one of the buffy eggs was a double also.














The general opinion: We like home grown eggs!

EGGS!!! Finally!!!

We finally have eggs!!

We got one on Friday, one on Saturday and THREE on Sunday including one from Arica our Americauna hen. Her eggs are GREEN! How fun is that! First is the picture of our first little lone egg...then we got the second picture is the HUGE Americauna green one next to a white one from Kroger. Then all of the eggs together. The one Brown egg (from one of the Buffies) and the Green egg are beyond JUMBO. In the next day or two I will use them and find out if we have any double yokes. That happens sometimes when they first start laying.














Oh, I bet you are wondering about Arica and Star...I forgot to update with our newest additions. There was a person in Johnstown that needed to downsize his flock. Later, I would decide that he is less than trustworthy. Anyway. He said his birds were already laying and that it should prompt ours to start laying too. So I got a Black Star (named Star) who lays brown eggs, and a Americauna, sometimes know as an "Easter-Egger" as they lay green, blue, pink or brown eggs. Her name is now Arica. She is very pretty. Both are black. Star is so black that she has almost a green tint to her feathers. Arica has a brown almost tiger pattern on her feathers.

After I got them back home, I discovered that I was an idiot and didn't inspect them before I left the farm. Both had patches on their back that had the feathers broken off at the skin. And Star has a deformed foot that doesn't work at all. Both had mites. Still I put powder on to kill the mites and put them in the coop. I didn't realize just how BIG the buffies are until I saw these two with them. They looked like.BLONDE.AMAZON.BIRDS! Immediately the whole "pecking order" stuff started. Dumpling did not like the newcomers (she was the current TOP.BIRD) and was picking on them all the time. The two new birds decided to hide out in the nest box the MAN had built for all the birdie. After they made a royal mess of that, I blocked it so no one could get in.

Then Dumpling got sick. I thought maybe she was egg-bound, and won't know for sure because MAN took care of her little body for me. But another local farmer at the feed store took me under his wing (HAHAHA). The day after we lost Dumpling, Arica had bubbles coming out of her eyes...Yes, very odd indeed, and enough to freak me out! So I ran down to the local feed store, the new owner couldn't help me, but called the previous owner (a farmer of 50+ years) and we talked on the phone for 20 minutes. He said that he didn't think that Dumpling was eggbound, that she likely had an upper respiratory infection (yes, my chickens had a cold!) and now Arica had it and likely all the rest were on their way to getting it. There is nothing more pathetic than a chicken sneezing!

So armed with antibiotic that is good for ALL livestock, and as my new farmer friend said, "if your kid gets sick, put a spoonful in his milk, he'll be right as rain. It's the only thing I use!" So as MAN put it, we have new FARM-aceuticals. HAHAHA!

We rigged up a light to warm up the coop, and put the antibiotics in the water. And within a few days, all was better. So that is how it comes to be that we lost one chicken and yet still have 4! AND.FINALLY.HAVE.EGGS!!

NEW Camera - commentary coming

Pumpkin Pictures - Story Soon!

The Grocery Game

Some of you know I am huge fan of The Grocery Game and so is the BOY! Every week he asks when we are going "gaming." And you thought he was talking about video games! I heard about it last spring from the Man (who heard it from another man on The River Radio station), and decided to give the 4-week $1 trial a shot. I will start posting pics of my "stash" and my savings so you too will be convinced.

The first few weeks were a bit confusing, but after I got the hang of things I decided to keep going. Before GG, I "played" at being a coupon shopper, and truly thought I was getting the best prices at Walmart Supercenter or Aldis. Boy was I WRONG! That is exactly what Big-Box discount retailers want you to think, and their marketing is very effective at convincing you of just that.If you have never heard of The Grocery Game, here is a quick explanation from their website:

The Grocery Game is a website that can save you hundreds of dollars on grocery bill each month. Log in, spend a few minutes with a pair of scissors, and you're off to win The Grocery Game!

When you play, you'll get a weekly list (called Teri's List) of the lowest-priced products at your supermarket matched with manufacturers' coupons and weekly specials -- advertised and unadvertised. The Grocery Game does all the hard work and research, and presents it to you in a straightforward format.Why can't I just do this on my own?Coupon pros spend hours preparing to shop. They research ads and match their coupons to sales, only to discover twice as many un-advertised sales once they get to the store. More hours are spent standing in the aisles sifting through their files for coupons to match those sales.

Members of The Grocery Game eliminate those time-consuming hours and usually save even more than the coupon pros. For example, just because an item is on sale doesn't mean its time to play your coupon. Our databases track the sales history on nearly every item in the supermarket, waiting to use a coupon on rock-bottom sales. Now, the best possible savings are quickly accessible to busy professionals, overworked moms, single adults or anyone who wants to cut their grocery bill by 50% or even more.

I do realize that GG is not for everyone, but it certainly works for me! Let's see if I can overcome some objections I have heard:

• "I don't have time to shop this way".Baloney! I have a full time job, a kid, 3 chickens, 2 dogs, homeschool, a full "extra schedule", and a husband. You can make time if you truly want to save money. Watch one less TV show per week and replace it with couponing. I actually use my "TV time" to clip coupons.
• "I am not organized enough to be a coupon shopper". Have you seen my house?!? Organized and Rea are not found in the same sentence! But my coupons are organized, and that makes me smile. I feel like I have control over one small part of the organized chaos that is my home. It has actually motivated me to get other areas of my life in order as well."
• "I don't usually buy what is on the list".Do you buy toilet paper? Cheese? Yogurt? Soup? Cereal? I thought so. There are also usually many convenience snack items on the list. If you are super frugal and cook mostly from scratch, the list is probably not for you. But, if you are a busy mom like me, those items are a necessity.
• "I don't have room to stockpile". I have carefully found ways to store my bargains for future use. You probably have some clutter lying around you never use anyway, so get rid of it and stock up on things you WILL actually use!
• "I feel guilty paying so little for so much". REALLY??Get over it. Retailers and manufacturers would not give us coupons if they actually hurt their bottom line. Every store get reimbursed for every coupon accepted, plus a handling fee. Also, the vast majority of Americans don't shop with coupons, so why not put them to good use? Millions of coupons get thrown away every week, what a shame.
• "I prefer one-stop shopping."I understand this one all too well. The problem with one-stop shopping for me (usually at Target) was all the extra impulse buys that were adding up. Now, I stick to the list, get in and get out. My spending has dropped tremendously, and I am much less impulsive in a grocery store.

If you want to throw any other objections my way, I am all ears.Here are some of my tips for using the GG:

• Don't sign up for too many stores, or you will get overwhelmed. Two or three should be plenty to get you started.
• Print your lists on Saturday night, circle the coupons you need, and check each one off as you find it.
• Head to the store with nothing but your list and your coupon holder. Leave kids at home if possible. Stick only to the list for the most savings!

Still not convinced? Try it for 4-weeks, it's only a dollar. You can cancel anytime, without hassle.

Please email me for an invitation, or sign up directly using Rickki@homestead.com as your referral source, if you don't mind.I would love everyone's feedback! Have you tried the Grocery Game?

Frog!

All Summer the Boy and his friend CC have been catching toads (and crickets to feed them). Today while we were walking in the yard, he found an actual frog! He played with him for about an hour and then let it go in the creek on the side of our yard.