How To Save Money, Part 2

Early in my marriage, frugality in the kitchen was a matter of survival.

At first, our pantry was stocked with whatever our friends and family didn't want. I pulled a good deal of it out of dumpsters...Originally this post was going to be about how vegetarianism can save you money. I became a vegetarian at first because second-hand meat is about the least appetizing thing in the world, and even cheap meat is way too expensive, whereas quality meat pretty much has to be grown at home to be at all affordable. Living in a studio apartment with barely enough space for Darling, me, and a tomato plant...I went the non-livestock route.

We were poor, and Darling is one of those very tall, lean, incredibly hungry men. We purchased the heartiest foods available at the local Food Lion: oatmeal, beans, rice, pasta...and he would eat half a pound at every meal. I finally confessed to my coworkers my difficulty feeding a man who could eat a jar of peanut butter a day, and The Cheese Shop was recommended to me. A coworker even loaned me her car to get there!

The cheese shop sold oats, flour, and sugar in fifteen pound bags. We could buy containers of spices for a few bucks at a time. We purchased bran flakes, raisins, and coconut flakes to make the best cereal ever at a fraction of the price of boxed raisin bran. A year's worth of yeast was about five bucks. Half-pound bars of dark chocolate were a dollar each. It was HEAVEN. We spent $50 on our first trip, and were set for the rest of the month. From then on, we'd take a trip every couple of months and spent around $150 each time, eventually building a famously stocked pantry of any baking item we could want.

So, really, buying whole foods in bulk is probably the wisest choice you could possibly make in the kitchen, whether or not you choose to eat animals as well.

Eating whole foods, however, will do nothing for you without the complement of knowing how to cook and bake whole foods. Canned beans are significantly more expensive than dried, and I don't know how they make rice "instant," but saving twenty minutes can't be worth the exorbitant price of that weird boxed stuff. Baking bread is probably the most meditative and rewarding frugal effort in history, followed closely by baking cookies, muffins, and pies.

Back in 2005, newly married, I literally didn't know how to saute an onion. So don't think this is something you either know or don't know. Desperately trolling the internet for ideas and advice, I found The Family Homestead, which led me to the world of blogs. Writers like Crystal, Meredith, and the (original) hillbilly housewife basically taught me to be a wife and homemaker (Thanks, y'all!).

If you don't know how to cook yet, be patient with yourself. Learn the basics: boiled pasta with canned pasta sauce and grated cheese, baked and/or mashed potatoes, steamed veggies...Many people are anxious about how little they know how to cook, but the average fast food and convenience-based diet is about the least varied diet in the world. Find something that feels safe, such as soups, salads, or sandwiches, and start with that. I began with eggs: scrambled, then scrambled with onion, then scrambled with other veggies...then back to just scrambled for a while, and eventually worked my way up to egg salad and eventually quiches. It was certainly healthier than my previous burger-and-pizza diet.

Too often, frugal-minded folks turn to store brands, coupons, and convenience foods sold in bulk (think Costco or Sam's Club). I've never been impressed with these methods in the slightest. At best they are more cost-efficient than purchasing name-brand products at full-price, but too often this devolves into a spending game that leads to over-consuming. Frugality is not a matter of getting more for less money. Frugality should be about getting exactly as much as you need, of the greatest quality available, for as little expenditure as possible. Over-consumption, at any price, is not good for the wallet, your health, or the planet.

I can't publish this advice without mentioning one practice that has saved me the most money while providing me with the most healthful diet since concerning myself with frugality in the kitchen: working for farmers. I've worked for two farms, one in VA and one in TX, and both have provided me with enough food to live off of for months at a time. I can't advocate this as an ideal way of life, however, due to the poverty wages accompanying these jobs. I LOVE working on farms, and I love having plenty of fresh eggs, vibrant greens, indescribably sweet fruit, and more than enough left over to can and preserve. Growing food at home is also satisfying and rewarding, but has a similar trade-off: a garden will only yield so much as you can provide for it. A year's worth of food requires a year's worth of labor. There's no better way to spend your time, of course, so take the opportunity to work the soil if you ever get the chance.

Paying Debt, Garden Veggies, Car-Sharing...the Usual

I now owe less than $6,000 in student debt!

I've been paying debt compulsively for weeks now, and learned three days ago that one can only make eight electronic payments to my creditors in a single month. That is also how I discovered my tendency to make, on average, two payments a week. The reason I only make two payments a week is that they take approximately 72 business days to process, and I don't like having them stack up while waiting for them to hit my bank account.

OTHER stuff is happening in my life, believe it or not. Very mundane, boring sorts of stuff, but I should mention it because my life is slightly more balanced than my blog might lead one to believe. For instance, I'm still cooking, and recently discovered the joy of stir-fry sauces. I now make a killer ginger-orange sauce, green curry coconut sauce, brown sauce, and spicy peanut satay, and therefore have no reason to eat anything else.

The house garden is out of control. We are overwhelmed by beets and beet greens, broccoli, kale, snow peas, and the like. People keep coming to the house and, when gifted with a bag of veggies, make comments like, "y'know, you can eat every part of the broccoli plant." Yessss. You can also eat nothing but broccoli for three meals a day this time of year, but even that gets old. Take this out of my sight!

Darling has started waking up a little earlier than me and making lunch for us in the morning, mostly because I am not a ray of sunshine before dawn. His own work leaves him too tired in the evening to make dinner, which I already mentioned, so I guess we're even. Even though we bought his computer a week ago, he still hasn't had time to put it together! He's hoping to this afternoon.

I'm really desperate to find a solution to this vehicle situation. Today someone said to me, by way of introduction (because, being the only woman amongst six hundred men, it is important for each one to know me on a personal level), "So you like driving trucks." And he said it so knowingly, so confidently. What do you do? How could I turn to him and say that not only do I dislike driving trucks, but I hate driving with a passion, every day I hate it a little more, every hour in traffic is agony, every bleary morning is terrifying, every visit to the gas station another stab in the gut? How could I say that the series of assumptions he might have already made about me, whatever formulaic response his brain makes to compute Pretty Girl + Big Truck, is wrong. That on top of all the other automatic assumptions the men make about me, my life, my marriage, my values, my principles, I have to smile wanly and respond, "yes, I drive a truck."

I have moved across town and across the country without the use of a car. I have borrowed vehicles for road trips. I have gone grocery shopping on foot, by bus, and by cab. Never before have I found myself unable to find an alternative to car-ownership. And there is an expiration date on borrowing my Mom's truck.

I've mentioned both ZipCar and Car2Go and spent a good deal of time researching both to find the better bargain or alternative. My attempts to find a transportation solution have included researching the price and possibilities of traditional car-pooling, daily cab rides, craigslist carshare, and capmetro's vanpool. I can say with disappointing confidence that there is absolutely NO perfect solution. But my shiny new Car2Go membership might prove to be slightly more perfect than indefinitely using Mom's car. I'm pretty excited to get my card in the next couple of days. If all goes well, the truck (and a $1,000 debt repayment) will go home with Mom next week!

Canning Hot Stuff

Just in case you're worried I'm forsaking the kitchen altogether, yesterday was mostly devoted to pickling and canning this year's massive jalapeño crop. The house has about five plants, two of which could look me in the eye (for some reason plants get really, really tall in our garden) and were way too productive to be kept up with.

This was my first time pickling, and I did so without my canning supplies since those are still at my Mom's. I filled our biggest pot with boiling water, set an inverted veggie steamer at the bottom to support the jars, and Darling bent a clothes hanger so as to offer some support to the jars. I used tongs to move the jars in and out of the boiling water. A couple of housemates helped harvest and slice, and now we have about six and a half pints! Hope they turn out alright :)

Even though this won't affect our grocery bill, it will knock one favorite luxury item off our grocery list for the rest of the year. And I know the gardners appreciate their hard work not going to waste.

Back and In The Garden

We got home just after midnight last night, showered, and crashed.

The trip was definitely a success, financially as well as socially. I can hardly believe we did not overdraft our bank account. We did borrow some money from a friend when we'd found out at the last minute that rail fares had increased substantially. Sadly, I never had access to the Internet and did not get Tina's suggestion for National Express Buses. Next time :)

It is so great to be home! Austin had a good rain while we were gone and the garden has gone quite mad. My precious tomato seedlings actually look like tomato plants, and the tomatoes I'd purchased from the community garden have are growing heavy with green fruit. The eggplants and pepper I'd purchased with the tomatoes have several buds and flowers. The garlic stalks are thick and almost as tall as the tomatoes, and the chard is ready for harvesting. The herb garden is an entity unto itself, large and complex enough to lose a toddler in. Our bibb lettuce bolted completely to seed, so I yanked it out and planted six bell pepper seedlings in its place. The rest of the bell peppers were transplanted into individual containers in case pests wipe out the tiny ones in the garden.

Having transplanted the bell peppers, I planted cantaloupe seeds in the "bedside nursery."

This evening I picked up free bread and sweets from the bakery I work at and made a soup of the veggies that survived our two weeks away: carrots, radish, turnip, kohlrabi, and cabbage. Darling has spent most of the day in bed dealing with jet lag, but I am trying to remain active and awake until bedtime. No time for a shifty sleep schedule, tomorrow it is back to work and I have 6 days to make rent :)

First Seedlings of '09

We have tomato seedlings!!!

I had basically lost faith in my ability to sprout seeds. I know we were able to do it last year, but I've been so much busier lately and haven't been able to give the flats even the minimal time and attention they require. Finally I just put a pot of compost and seeds on our bedroom dresser where I could not possibly forget about it.

Every night before bed, I poured some of my night-time cup of water on the soil. Every morning upon waking, we both had a drink. I considered this an act of futility. I imagined that without a fancy lighting system, spray bottle, and gourmet potting soil my babies would ignore my attempts at bringing them to life. Then yesterday morning I was greeted by about half a dozen sweet, leggy greens!

Eventually planting, growing, and harvesting will feel natural and predictable. Someday I will trust myself and the soil and the sun. In the meantime, every little success feels monumental and magical.

November in Texas

Our Greenling order was amazing this week! We received loads of root vegetables such as sweet potatoes (including the largest one I have ever seen), huge beets, carrots (who knew anyone is still harvesting carrots?), and beautiful red radishes. Our box also contained a couple of oranges and lemons, several apples, parsley, mustard greens, kale, romaine (I think), an entire head of bibb lettuce with root ball attached (now in garden, along with the 10 other plants they've sent literally fresh enough to plant), avocados, and onions. All local and mostly organic, for $34. I am so grateful to live in a state still producing so much bounty, even if I do miss snow

It was sunny and warm enough to go into the garden for the first time in over a week, and I had a great time pulling weeds and planting some flowers. I raked up enough leaves to mulch the big garden, and determined that the herb garden is officially sustainable for the time being: the cold nights have killed most of the less-hearty annuals, but the perennials (mexican marigold, basil, mint, chives, and more) are large and healthy enough to fend for themselves. Next spring I'll make the patch a little larger and plant some more mint, which I hope will eventually take over the yard.

Now that I've played outside, I need to get the inside cleaned up before tomorrow's dinner. My dining table is covered in vegetables, my fridge needs to be cleaned, my sink is full of dishes, and the floor needs to be vacuumed, preferably before we go on our last minute shop or my Mom gets here this evening.

Garlic and Food Fun

I can't believe it's been nearly a week since my last post! We've been busy with work and school, I guess.

Today I went shopping for apples, bananas, and sugar and ended up stopping by the hardware and garden center on the way to the store and found some garlic seedlings hidden in the back. We were planning on planting garlic cloves (a month late) but it seemed just as sensible to buy and plant six seedlings. It's good to see some green in that ground while waiting to see if that spinach will eventually decide to sprout. Since each plant produces one bulb (which in turn can contain as many as 20 cloves), I'm thinking of picking up the store's remaining seedlings next week. There's no such thing as having too much garlic, after all.

Despite feeling drawn to the grocery store - again - I confirmed our Greenling order and can't wait to see it on Thursday. A local box, 21 smoothie bananas, and 5 apples. Darling and I still have some veg leftover from the order two weeks ago (it will take us at least another month to go through our four onions), so we know we're getting enough food. We just have to make an effort to use it.

We have most of rent in the bank, which is a relief. I still haven't been able to set up our weekly automatic payment system, but we're getting there.

2 New Skills

Yesterday I picked the three eggplants over-ripening on the vine, broiled them, and blended them with yogurt, garlic, olive oil and (local) lemon juice to produce baba ganoujh. It is yummy and a great way to use up that vegetable I can't make myself eat any other way. Now I'm actually looking forward to the next harvest :)

I went out for late night knitting with my friend/instructor, who gave me some lovely gray and brown wool and taught me how to purl. Now I'm working on my second scarf. I can't wait to go to the Hill Country Weavers and pick out my own supplies, but we can't budget that quite yet.

We didn't earn as much as I hoped to last weekend, but wrote a check to my Sister-in-Law J and bought some staples from Wheatsville. I haven't fallen off the local-delivery bandwagon yet, but did need to pick up some staples (olive oil and toiletries) that we can't get from Greenling. I ended up purchasing more than intended, though, so we've canceled this weeks order and look forward to getting another local box Thursday after next.

More on Local Farming

Hats off to N and J for celebrating Thanksgiving with an heirloom turkey!

One common complaint about both maintaining good health and a green lifestyle is the price. In some situations one will pay a little more money in order to do what is truly The Right Thing. In the case of heirloom meat, one will pay a LOT more money! But the rewards are priceless. Farmers work so hard to provide quality products, and are taking a huge risk in doing so. Just like it might be easier for you or me to live off the dollar menu at McDonalds, it might be easier for that farmer to operate a factory farm. I remember a factory farm "pitch" from my childhood when I was a member of the 4H club: we viewed a slide-show of chickens in tight cages and listened to a lecture on how much profit could be made per sq. ft. of space. Farmers who raise livestock responsibly are going against the corporate grain, and should be rewarded for their stewardship of our resources.

Of course, my husband has been a vegetarian for ten years and we have chosen to maintain that lifestyle choice. So we're supporting the produce side of local farms :) Unsure of whether our Greenling order will last the week, we're making a conscious effort to cook every day and use the veg before it goes bad. This has taken a little imagination, but has been delicious. I made savory onion pie today, served with green salad (chopped the last of the radish into it). I then made key lime "pudding," with a clear jelling agent and sugar. It was too rich for my blood, and I decided to bake whole wheat sugar cookies tomorrow and create jammy dodgers with the leftovers. Sadly we're about out of butter and oil, so I'm not sure how we'll go about those cookies.

I've also been inspired to attack our garden once more. I gave the soil a good turning, ripping grass roots out by the handful. A neighbor drove me to a nearby curb where I've watched three large trash bags of cut grass sit for weeks (so I know the seed is dead). We packed those bags into our trunk, and now one sits next to our compost bin. The other was laid over our garden, where I tucked spinach seeds into the freshly churned dirt and gave the area a good watering.
In five days, I hope to see their little green heads pop up and know we'll have greens through the winter.

4-Day Vacation

After realizing I'd worked over 20 days in a row, I took a few days off. Well, four to be exact! I had a lot of errands to run and people to catch up with, not to mention a house to knock back into shape. I'm trying to get back into flylady, so the fast couple of days I've worked on developing a morning routine which includes checking all of my e-mail and phone messages (I habitually go weeks without checking my phone messages) and meditating, basically making myself shape the day instead of chasing panicked thought after sudden desire from morning till midnight and never getting anything done.

This morning I planted chard and, tomorrow I plant a lettuce mix and we will officially have 50 sq. feet of salad growing in our back yard. I can't wait to have fresh veg for our green smoothies, which I've been making every morning since a friend gifted me with her old blender last week. Who knew something so green and sludgy could taste just like raspberry orange juice?

Financially we are no longer in a hole, but sort of barely scraping by. It will be something of a relief to get back to work tomorrow and bring home some rent money. But these days of catching up with my non-work life have been a huge relief!

Little Melons

This morning I discovered two tiny watermelon, no larger than golf balls, attached to the vine that has devastated most of what used to be our flower garden. We also have slightly larger cantaloupe in the same garden. Am I the only person overwhelmed by the cuteness of baby melons?

Our eggplants are producing rather well, and the tomatoes seem to be considering transforming from green to red. The rain we've had the past two days brought our cucumbers back to life, so they are back to attacking their neighboring corn and bush beans. The sunflowers are about two feet tall now and looking rather proud of themselves. The chard is ready for eating!

This inspired me to plant cauliflower, pumpkin, peppers, and the last of our carrot seeds. This is my last chance at pumpkin for awhile, so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Garden Talk

Darling and I did some real gardening for the first time since May. We started by digging up about fifteen potatoes. Not a bad yield for two chopped up sprouting old russets we otherwise would have tossed. We then checked out the Austin planting guide picked up from the November Edible Estates workshop and raided our seed cache. We planted some corn, cucumbers, chard, peppers, and edible sunflowers in the large bed. Tomorrow we'll put a pumpkin seed or two in the front garden.

While the rest of Texas suffers a tomato shortage due to a salmonella outbreak, our community is enjoying a lovely heirloom crop. Two of our eggplants have produced two small fruit, the squash is flourishing, we have a tiny baby cantaloupe, and the watermelon plant is flowering quite well. Every herb we put into the ground has become a small bush, and even our flowers and new rose bush are doing quite well despite the heat.

I've had a weird relationship with the garden since starting school. It seems like such a hassle, an obstacle between myself and much-desired rest every day after class. But when I actually water, mulch, or interact with it at all, I experience a precious level of peace and accomplishment. I need to develop a garden-friendly routine that gets me out there every day so guilt and stress don't drive me away from my favorite (and most productive) hobby!

Summer Garden

Beans are poking their heads out of the black clay soil like little green dragons. I pulled one weed to realize it was a pumpkin seedling (our first so far), and patted it apologetically back into the soil. Corn is popping up randomly between piles.

The carrot tops are beginning to resemble small bushes, the potatoes are topped with flower buds, and there is a huge blank space in the garden where we pulled up seeding broccoli and cauliflower to put in eggplant, peppers, and cantaloupes. Three little berries are developing on my potted strawberry plant. One neighbor planted marigolds and daisies around the herb garden, another spent yesterday creating a cactus garden.

I will miss this yard while we are gone!

Darling has a work meeting today, so I am busying (um, will be busying myself) around the house, cleaning dishes and vacuuming for guests tonight and my mom this week.

More Garden Stuff

Before work I mulched our future 3 Sisters' Garden (corn, beans, and squash), planted potatoes in a very large raised bed, transplanted some herbs the community seems to have forgotten about (rosemary and garlic chives - yum) and did some general yard clear up.

Went to work and made rent, which is exciting. Now we just have to worry about one bill and our official obligations are met :)