Frugal and Good for the Earth

Visit Biblical Womanhood for lots of Frugal Friday tips.

Over the last 6 months or so, we've slowly started doing things in our home that are both frugal and not wasteful. Here is a list of some of those things.

1. Reusable shopping bags - We've slowly been acquiring these from our local stores that offer them. We currently have 6 and I think that will be enough. These bags hold a lot and as of yet, we've never had need to use all 6 in a single shopping trip. I love that we are not bringing tons of plastic bags into our home each week. Even when we were finding other uses for them or bringing them back to the store for recycling, it still felt very wasteful. In addition to cutting out our need for these plastic bags, our reusable shopping bags also save us 5 cents each at on of our stores. I know that 5 cents isn't much, but over time, this discount means that the bags (which we paid up to $1 each to acquire) will pay for themselves. Nice :o)

2. Driving less - I think gas prices have finally reached the point that it is a factor in the amount of driving we do. Actually, I'm glad to have finally felt the need to consider the amount of driving we do. Just a few months ago, we would have thought nothing of hopping in the car and driving an hour for a joy ride or to run a single errand or even just to relieve boredom. We are much more careful now, making sure we combine errands and we stay home most days now. We're trying to be home most days and have only one day that we are out of the house. We combine our errands, classes and even a visit to the park all on one day. It makes for a long day, but it feels good to exercise control over that part of our budget. And even though gas prices are going up, the last few months have seen our fuel bill go down.

3. Eating out less - As a natural consequence of driving less, we find that we are eating out less. This benefits our budget (its about $35 for our family of 4 to eat at a moderately priced restaurant and $25 for fast food). , our health and I think its also ecologically smart. When we do eat out, we try to choose a locally owned restaurant that employs cooks to prepare the food, instead of just opening packages and nuking the contents or dumping it into a fryer. We feel good about this choice. We're eating real food and helping to support a family business.

4. Learning to garden - This is the second year we plant a square foot garden. Its been a great learning experience for dh & I as well as the children. Plus, we know how our food was grown. Its very comforting to know what water was used to water our spinach plants (something you can't know when you depend upon the agricultural supply chain for your food). And there is something very soul satisfying to walk out to the garden at 4:00 pm to harvest supper.

5. Hang the laundry to dry - Dh has asthma that is particularly affected by pollen (especially grass pollens), so an out door clothes line is not practical for most of our laundry drying needs. Instead, we have an indoor clothes line (shower curtain rod) where we hang our clothes (on hangers, that way they are ready for the closet as soon as they are dry). Our dryer is only used for towels and bedding.

6. Raise the thermostat - It was easier than I thought to get used to keeping the thermostat raised a few degrees (we live in the deep, deep south - its been over 90 deg during the day for several weeks here). As the summer progresses, we're going to keep experimenting and raising the thermostat until it becomes too uncomfortable for us, then we'll lower it back down to the last comfortable setting. I'm hoping this will help keep our electric bill from going up too much this year.

I'm interested in knowing what you are doing. Please share in the comments.

Also, please be sure to check out my bloggy giveaway. The drawing will be held Monday morning, June 2, 2008.

Thrifty Thursday - Homemade Salad Dressing

With the summer heat blazing in some parts of the country, thoughts are turning towards dinners that don't require heating up the kitchen (well, at least that's happening at my house, here in the deep south). Salads are an easy and filling supper and keep the kitchen cool at the same time. Here is a link to a great website with a wonderful "tutorial" for making your own salad dressings. It took me a few months to actually get up the courage to try making my own, and I was pleasantly surprised at just how easy it is to do. I find that making small batches works well for us and I store them in a mason jar in the fridge so that we have a few choices at any given time. Yummy, easy and thrifty :o)

Tonight, we had left over chicken, shredded, over a bed of greens, topped with pitted cherries, sliced nectarines and walnuts. The dressing we used is called Sweet Sherry and Cherry Vinaigrette (found it in the CVS magazine we received about a week ago). Basically, you blend 1/4 lb pitted cherries, 1/4 cup sweet sherry vinegar, 1/4 tsp dijon mustard, 1 shallot in a blender then drizzle in one cup of EVOO. Salt and pepper to taste. I liked it alot, but I think the EVOO is a little strong and competes with the cherries too much. Next time I'm going to try it with light Olive Oil instead to see if the milder flavor works better for our taste.

Be sure to check out my bloggy giveaway - free kids books!

Bloggy Giveaway

Its time for a fun bloggy giveaway! On Monday morning, I will draw a name from all of the comments left on this post and one lucky winner will receive the books Pirate Things to Make and Do and Fairy Cooking. These books are filled with fun activities and crafty ideas to beat summertime boredom.

So, here are the rules. Visit my Usborne Website and have a look around. Post a comment below (be sure to comment on this post) telling the name of at least one book that caught your eye. On Monday morning, I will choose a winner and post the winner's name here on my blog.

There is also another chance to win books. All orders placed through the "Bloggy Giveaway" e-show link on my website will be entered into a drawing to win the hostess benefits from that e-show! You could win from $15 to $100+ in free books of your choice (based on the sales of the e-show). Be sure to place your order by Sunday evening - the show closes Sunday at midnight.

Be sure to tell your friends. If we have more than 50 comments (by 50 different people), I'll draw a second winner, as well. And the same goes for the e-show. If we have more than $400 in orders, I'll choose 2 winners! Now, go on - spread the word :o)

100th post and a yummy recipe :o)

This is my 100th post :o) I didn't realize I post that often. ;o)

Yesterday, at Kroger, the produce dept had bags of ripe bananas priced to sell. We picked up a 5 lb bag for $1.50, knowing that we'd use them for banana nut bread and smoothies. Today, we tried a new recipe for Banana Nut Pancakes. Delicious! Here's the "recipe":


Banana Nut Pancakes

2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup flour (we used 1/3 cup white, 1/3 cup whole wheat and 1/3 cup of oat/ flax/ wheat germ mix)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
hand full of chopped walnuts

Mash bananas and add egg and milk. Mix well. Combine dry ingredients then add to wet stirring until just mixed. Add walnuts and stir. Drop by 1/4 cup onto prepared griddle/ pan and cook as you would cook pancakes.

We added butter and honey and they tasted exactly like banana nut bread (without the sweet topping, they are a little bland as there is no added sugar in them). We put the leftovers in the freezer and will definitely make these again - I think they may become a regular addition to our breakfast rotation.

Thrifty Thursday - Cloth Napkins

This is my first time participating in Thrifty Thursday over at Comical Coupon Sense. I don't have a picture (camera issues). Sorry.

This past weekend, we hit 3 garage sales in our neighborhood and found several things that we needed. First, we found boys jeans that fit my boys for .50 each. My boys wear out jeans faster than I could ever have imagined. I will not pay full price for them, as they usually end up ripped at the knees within a few wearings.

What I am most excited about though was the cloth napkins I found. One garage sale had 30 cloth napkins she sold them to me for $3.00! We already had 6 and I had been wanting to buy more, but not for $1.50 - 2.00 a piece. Now we have enough for 3 meals a day for 3 days without running out. I love that we will now be throwing out less paper (I really hated using paper napkins). I also think that using cloth napkins is making our meal time seem more special - its reminiscent of eating in a fine restaurant. After all, those are usually the only place most people use a cloth napkin.

Check out Comical Coupon Sense for more Thrifty Thursday.

I have some empty space in my garden - what did you plant this year?

We have a square foot garden. I love it. We have 4 blocks that are 4X4, so we have 64 square feet of productive garden. So far this year, we have harvested 4 (of 6) heads of romaine lettuce (we lost the last 2 in bad weather last week), lots of baby greens (butter crunch, red bibb, green bibb, spinach), carrots, broccoli, green onions and several bunches of basil and parsley. We have planted 18 cucumber plants, 9 tomato plants (flowering-yay!), 4 pepper plants (flowering-yay!), green onions, 2 strawberries, (we get about 1 berry per day from them right now - we are putting in more beds for these next year) spinach, carrots, yellow squash, sweet potatoes, green beans, basil, parsley, baby greens and purple hull peas. With all of that in the garden, we still have some "open" squares - 16 to be exact. I'm thinking I'll put more peppers in and perhaps more herbs. I'm still looking for a few more things to fill up those last squares. I'd love you ideas. What do you have planted?

WFMW: Homemade Break Apart Cookie Dough

I posted this last August and thought it was time to share it again. I love the convenience of break apart cookies from the grocery store, but don't like all those funky chemicals that I can't even pronounce lurking in my kiddos snacks. Last year, I made a quadruple batch of sugar cookies and baked one, then put the other three in separate gallon sized zip top baggies.



After smooshing the contents of the bag flat, I used chop sticks to make the "perforations". When I want to use them, I take the bag out of the freezer and break them apart while still frozen. It also helps to put baking instructions on the bag in case you can't put your hands on the recipe when you're ready to bake (not that I ever lose a recipe or anything, lol).

Now, when we make cookies, we usually at least double (but often quadruple) the recipe and put some in the freezer for later. And it works beautifully with other kinds of cookies, too. If you'd like to read the original post, click here.

And check out more ideas at Rocks in My Dryer and Works for Me Wednesday.