Spending to Save

Let me just get this out of the way: I'm freezing. My toes are so cold. I'm definitely going to have chilblains. My nose is running. I'm washing clothes just so the water in the hot water heater doesn't get to cold for tomorrow morning's shower. (It heats the water fine. It just doesn't keep it hot too well.)

Instead of cranking up the heat, I'm cranking it down. We were going to replace our old original windows on the front of the house. Our house is old enough to be on the National Register...it's just not significant in any way. So, yeah, they're pretty old and leaky. We didn't get new windows bought before the Great Layoff of '10 so we are just going to have to make due.

I know I said I didn't need any more projects, but for the good of our gas bill, I'm making curtains. I finally convinced Husband to let me hang curtains in one room of the house for winter. I'm going to make them for all the rooms. Of course, when I say "I," I mean me and my mommy. Now I just have to go shopping (ugh) for material.

We also bought LED lights for our Christmas tree. Husband sings the praises of LEDs and how much they will impact our electricity bill. I'll believe it when I see it. It might take a long time to offset the costs of the new LEDs. I guess we'll see on our next bill. At the very least, I won the battle over white or colored lights (white!) so I'm ok with it.
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Breakfast: Orange rolls  54 cents
Lunch:  Not-so-Hamburger Helper 63 cents
Snack: Saltines, deer sausage & cheese  36 cents
Dinner: In-Law Enchiladas: Free. I think this was pay-back for the chicken pot pie.

Total: $1.53

Waste Not and What Did We Learn This Week

For all of you who want to bust me for ignoring the "Secret of Adulthood" I wrote about earlier this week, rest assured that I did write yesterday. All my writing time was taken up by yesterday's Reverb 10 prompt. I still don't have it finished and posted yet. Also? I'm being really fancy and tying "This Week's Lessons" into the narrative.

As far as food waste goes, I'm pretty sure nothing got thrown out this week. But, at the same time, impulse food purchases did happen and cause some money waste. The Honor Snack was irresistible this week. Not that the food was good, but I ran out of granola bars to satisfy my afternoon snack desires. Also, we got to see Step-Daughter Thursday morning for about forty minutes before she went to a study session at school. I found out the night before so we had to resort to store-made muffins. Oh, and the $10 meeting lunch.

In big exciting news, the gift cards I ordered with my credit card points for Christmas presents arrived. Unforch, one of them was back-ordered. That operations fail doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But anyway, we might have to go buy the gift-card if it doesn't arrive in time for the gift exchange. Then we'll have an additional $25 to Borders. Not something we really need--just more clutter. But in the scheme of things, at least we won't have an extra gift card to Build-A-Bear.

And, finally, I made Shepherd's Pie yesterday. Except I learned that real Shepherd's Pie is made with ground lamb/mutton. I used ground beef & bulgur. If you get the beef/bulgur proportions right and cook the bulgur enough, it's kinda hard to tell that it's not all meat. I've never had Shepherd's Pie before but Husband deemed it a success, even though he wanted the meat part to be more runny. I deemed it a success because it was another 99 cent potato dish!

Electrical Tape - or - Why I Won't Just Go Buy Some New Danged Boots

A manifesto and a rant combined in one—isn’t this what blogs were made for?

I mentioned in yesterday’s post about how I used electrical tape to hold my boots together. Here is the backstory and the front story and a little more in the middle, as well:

When I was a young naïve spendthrift living in the Dirty South, my roommate came home one day from shopping with a great pair of name-brand high-heeled ankle boots. Unforch for her, one evening of wearing them around convinced her that they didn't fit. I bought them from her. It’s six years later and I’m still wearing the shit out of them. 

They’ve been re-heeled once by my very favorite shoe-guy ever. I don’t know if he’s even in business anymore but he was one of those “I’m open when I’m here” guys. He’d just as soon sew up your black dress shoes with red thread as change the spool on the machine, unless you specifically asked. If you’re a kid and you needed your baseball cleats to last you one more season, he’d probably charge you a quarter or fifty cents for the fixes.

I noticed this boot season that the new heel cap on the right boot was starting to loosen. Tuesday, the glue and the nails gave up the ghost. Off came the heel cap, well before lunch. I tried to pound it back together, without luck. One of my co-workers graciously offered to bring back some super glue when she went home for lunch. Comedy of errors: the glue tube was empty. Staplers wouldn't penetrate the cap but I did have some tape--both industrial strength squishy double stick tape and black electrical tape. As luck would have it, there was a board meeting that afternoon. I just decided that if anyone noticed the electrical tape, it would just be evidence of how I needed a raise.

Incidentally, Husband seemingly fixed my boot. I don't know if the fix will hold, because they haven't been worn yet, but we'll see.

And now for the manifesto...

I wasn't always so anti-consumerism. There were times in my life when my closet was five times the size of my current closet and it was packed full. But with the belated and slow-moving onset of adulthood, I realized that no matter where it came from or how much it cost or how it looks or what you do with it, it's--all of it--is still just stuff. I've eventually decided that, if it ain't broke, don't buy a new one. And if it is broke, fix it. Sure, I like nice stuff as much as the next person, but I don't want a lot of it. I don't want to move to Walden (yet?), but the less stuff I have, the less stuff I have to take care of and the fewer choices I have to make. No buying; less stuff; more life.

And now more ranting...

I sure hope the boots last because I'll be using them a lot more to get back and forth to work after the first of the year. Ironically, boots and a parking pass cost about the same amount of money. I've decided to avoid this O. Henry story and forgo both. After all, I've got a lot of electrical tape left over...
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Breakfast: Muffin 75 cents--I could say "free" because Husband bought them...

Lunch: Not so hamburger helper and cottage cheese 94 cents

Snack: red pepper and Laughing Cow, banana, Oreos $2.05

Dinner: Saltines, deer sausage and cheese 47 cents

 

Total:  $4.21

New Habits

Developing new habits is hard. I'm reminded of this over and over, whenever I have fall off the wagon, so to speak.

I can clearly identify what kept me from blogging both times that I've missed a few days. First, it was the emo-hangover from emo-warfare waged by a 9-year-old. Most recently, this, the second week of the month, is when my habit-change plans always encounter a hiccup. Before you go jumping to conclusions, it's not hormonal. The second week of the month is a busy time at work and it drains me. If I'm not working to meet a deadline of some sort, I'm planning and leading a big meeting of 40-50+ people. When I get home, "being good" is the last thing of interest. Bad tv, junk food, and bourbon seem much more comforting on bad days.

But, you know what I'm starting to realize? All this rationalizing doesn't get me closer to a goal. Rationalizing is just a $5 word for making excuses. And I can’t afford those prices.

I’m super good at starting something and not following through. Missing one whatever turns into missing two, then a week goes by, and that turns into a month. You get the idea.

The same thing happens with spending money and not spending money. It is easy and exciting to make a plan to save. The hard part comes with the mundane keeping up with the plan. That’s because keeping up with the plan is habit change.

There are a lot of tips out there to help people keep their resolutions and change their habits. You can find tons of blog posts, like this one, totally dedicated to helping people plan, implement, and track habit changes. Some of them are better than others. You can consider this post one of the "others." But, that's probably not why you're reading this blog. You're probably reading this blog either because I force you or because you were looking for a chicken pot pie recipe. Nonetheless, here are my top four suggestions for habit change:

1. Don't try to change too much at once. I've read before that we have a limited amount of willpower. For example, dieters are more likely to overspend and people trying to curb spending are more likely to give into other temptations. I believe this wholeheartedly. A few weeks ago, Husband and I were wandering around some of my favorite stores. Our last stop on the errand run for the evening was the grocery store. By the time we got there, all I could contemplate was buying the quickest, easiest, cheesiest thing I could cram into my pie-hole. It turned out to be Hot Pockets. If you tackle more than one habit, try to make sure they are related. Currently, I'm trying to save money and update this blog. The two are vaguely related as stated below 

2. Know why you want to change your habit. I started this blog because I knew I was going to need an outlet to express myself about this uncrisis of becoming a one-income household. (I say "uncrisis" because as scary as it is, we could be a LOT worse off. I realize this and am immensely thankful for it.) I decided to focus more on saving money because because I realized how closely we were to living on the edge. I started thinking about what would happen if our uncrisis suddenly turned into a crisis. I, for one, would rather keep my boots together with electrical tape (true story) and have an extra $80 in the bank than to have new boots and not know how to pay for the electricity.

3. Start with something you're really motivated about. I quit smoking. That is probably the biggest habit change that most people can go through--short of getting off the smack (heroin, not vagina, just to be clear). Your first habit change doesn't have to be huge or difficult, but it should be something that means a lot to you. For me, I know that if I can quit smoking, I can do anything. That mantra helped me start running and complete a half-marathon. (Sidebar: Another mantra that worked for running and smoking was that I can do anything for a minute longer.) Chances are, the success you have in one area and the lessons you learn from that first habit change will motivate you and help you succeed with other changes.


4.  Be accountable to someone else. This blog serves two purposes at once. While I'm not divulging any specific financial information, just knowing that I have to record how much I spent on food for the day makes me more aware of the little unnecessary splurges that we can sometimes fall victim to. Also, since writing this blog is a habit change itself, knowing that I have a few regular readers helps spur me out of the funk of not writing.

I think a good way to sum up this blog is through the words of Gretchen Rubin. While I don't know if I could ever sustain the kind of habit change marathon that she recounts in The Happiness Project, I have taken several lessons and words of wisdom from her work. Rubin records "Secrets of Adulthood" in her book and blog and this one is particularly apropos for me and for this post: "What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE." Not only does doing something every day reinforce it as a habit, carving out the time from our busy schedules means that this particular whatever is important.
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Breakfast: egg and soft cheese on English muffin
Lunch: Meeting lunch. $10 I don't know why I don't turn this in to be reimbursed. I never have before, though, and I guess I won't start now. 
Dinner: I haven't eaten anything yet.



Total: I may update this later. I just really want to hit "Publish Post" and overcome the blog-post-apathy feeling.
 

99 Cent Potatoes

Sometimes the store had 5 pound bags of potatoes for 99 cents. It is during these times that our household enjoys what I like to call Irish Potato Feasts. Except I'm not Irish and I'm sure the potatoes aren't Irish, but Husband has been called a "thievin' Mick" before so I guess that's close enough. (Note: He's never really stolen anything.)

I used a potato or two in the Chicken Pot, Chicken Pot, Chicken Pot Pie I made awhile ago but now I'm getting serious about potato cooking. Especially since I brought home a metric ton of sweet potatoes from Parents' after Thanksgiving. Do you know what I forgot? The pumpkin I was gonna cook.

This is a recipe I like to call Loaded Scalloped Potatoes. It's like a loaded baked potato, only they're scalloped potatoes. I don't know what the difference is between scalloped and au gratin. I don't need to know, really. They both scared me as a child. Probably because school lunches and church dinners were the only place I came into contact with anything scalloped or au gratin. And during school lunches and church dinners, you must choose wisely. Once at a church dinner Sibling and Friend found a rubber band in a dessert. Pops had a theory about how the rubber band got there--something to do with a newspaper. We call that recipe Rubber Band Dessert at our house. It's good, minus the newspaper detritus.

Despite my scalloped fear, I settled on this recipe because I was going to load it with good stuff. Free ham from Thanksgiving and a box of frozen chopped broccoli. And cheese, lots and lots of cheese. Cheese is always the right choice. I used a scalloped potato recipe out of my BH&G cookbook just to make sure I did the scalloped part right.

Loaded Scalloped Potatoes

1/2 cup chopped onion 25 cents
1 clove garlic, minced 5 cents
2 tbsp butter 14 cents
2 tbsp flour 1 cent
salt and pepper
1 1/4 c milk I use powdered milk for stuff that isn't drinking. 12 cents
1/2 c mozzarella cheese 32 cents
1/4 c Parmesan cheese 21 cents
3 medium potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced 18 cents
10 oz chopped, frozen broccoli, thawed and drained 99 cents
2 cups chopped ham free
1/2 cup cheddar cheese 32 cents

In a pan, cook onion and garlic  in butter until soft. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper. Add milk all at once. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened. Add the white cheeses and stir until melted.


In a greased 1 1/2 quart casserole, layer 1/2 the potatoes, 1 cup of ham, and 1/2 the broccoli, top with 1/2 the sauce. Repeat.

Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Uncover, top with cheddar and bake 15-20 minutes more.

Total: $2.59

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Breakfast: Oatmeal with cranberry sauce 33 cents
Snack: 1/2 granola bar 10 cents
Lunch: turkey wrap and oreos (from the honor snacks) $1.70
Dinner: Not-so-Hamburger Helper  63 cents

Total:  $2.76

This made about 6 servings so 43 cents per serving. It went very fast!