Happy Thanksgiving 2015 Part 1

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow I will be spending my day among my family (old and new). We will laugh and talk and eat way too much food.

I am thankful for another year and hopeful that next year will be just as good (though maybe not so exciting) as last year.

Stay tuned Friday for some tasteful pictures of food and fun.

Now on Pintrest!/ The last day of fall

So I went to set up a Pintrest account and found out I had one already. I may have caught the bug. 

Look at all the stuff I found 

It was a super busy weekend on my parents farm. It snowed here very early this year and we got a break in the weather over the weekend so we had to take advantage of this. 

My camera was in my pocket the whole time. I didn't take any pictures. I'll work on that. 

I'm going to go crawl into bed now.

Timeline

The need for a list is rising in me (I like lists) and I want a place where I can see a timeline for my goals so here we go:

2015: Build garage with apartment upstairs

2016: Start Garden

2017: Plant Fruit trees and Get chickens

2018: Bring on the goats!

2020: Build House

2021: Trip to Ireland

2024: Adopt if number of children is < 1

2037ish: Hubby Retires

2049ish: I retire

That seems doable. Five years to a house, no more than 10 years to kids, 23 years to hubby retirement and 35 years to my retirement. That means that the house morgage should be paid off by the time I retire (or at least that year) and kids should be between the ages of 20 and 35 at hubby's retirement (if we adopt we're going to adopt older kids). 

Now to see how plans change. 

Money Management vs. Time Management

The old adage "Time is money" is very, very true.

We trade time for money every time we go to work and every time we purchase a service, for example: 

I don't want to clean my house. That's fine, but my house still needs to be cleaned (it really does) and if I'm not going to do it then who will? Well I can trade someone money for house cleaning (their time) which the market has placed a value of $50*. I make $10 per hour so it costs me 5 hours of time to have someone else clean my house. Assuming I don't need the money for something else (hey, look, a flying pig) is it worth 5 hours of my time to have someone else clean my house?

Can I clean my own house in less than 5 hours? Yes. If I clean my own house I will be effectively making more money than I do at work? Yes. It is more efficient for me to clean my own house, so I probably shouldn't pay someone to clean it. 

But the math doesn't always come out, like here:

Bread, the kind that we prefer costs $2 per loaf. The cost of the ingredients for the bread is about 70 cents per loaf, certainly a savings but I have not paid for my time yet. It takes about two hours of work (not counting rising time) to make a batch of bread. If I make $10 per hour and make two loaves of bread in a batch I am running a loss of $17.40. This doesn't mean I never make bread (I love to make bread) but I don't do it and tell myself its cheaper than buying it at the store. 

This is what I'm thinking of when I'm trying to budget my time/money. I believe that it is possible to live a very happy lifestyle with very little money and efficient time management. 

*All amounts are approximate I have no idea what the market value on house cleaning is. 

Favorite (CHEAP) Holiday Recipes

The holiday season is once again nearly upon us, and once again we are basically broke. Truth be told I'm starting to get used to not having any money in the winter, its probably a good thing. Here are a few inexpensive recipes that are crowd pleasers that don't break the bank: 

Corn Casserole: 

Before this recipe came along I would have told you that I don't like corn casserole but my cousin's girlfriend changed all that for me. I have never had any trouble with this casserole, it always sets and is never soggy.

2 T. butter

8 oz. cream cheese, softened and cubed

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

1 can cream corn

1 cup corn muffin mix or one box Jiffy boxed corn bread mix

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave butter on high for 30 seconds or until melted.  Add cream cheese and continue to heat for 15 seconds at a time, until cream cheese is softened.  Stir well until blended.  Add in eggs, both cans of corn, and muffin mix; mix well.  Spread in 9 in. x 13 in. greased casserole dish. Sprinkle with cheese.  Bake at 350° for 40 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly.  Makes 16 serving.

*We eat a lot of corn bread so I make my own mix that I just have to add stuff to, here is the recipe I use:

5 parts all-purpose flour

3 parts corn meal

2 parts sugar

2 tsp baking powder per 2 3/4 cups of above ingredients

1/2 tsp salt per 2 3/4 cups above ingredients

Mix VERY well and store in airtight container for up to 1 year (at room temperature) or in the freezer basically forever, make sure you shake the container before you open it to use some of the mix. 

Cost of this recipe is about 34 cents per serving.

Green Bean Casserole:

4 cans green beans

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

1 can french fried onions

2 handfuls of shredded cheese

salt and pepper to taste

I like to start this in a pot and then move it to the baking dish, I think it lends to better distribution of the soup and cheese but you could just mix this up in your baking dish if you don't want the extra dirty dishes. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dump the cream of mushroom soup in the pot and turn the stove on its lowest setting. Fold in the green beans. Fold in the cheese. If the soup is too thick add just a splash of milk. Salt and pepper to taste (please, please put some salt in, it doesn't take much but you'll miss it if you omit it). Transfer to 9x11 baking dish (don't use metal) and top with french fried onions. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of the casserole, return to oven for additional 5ish minutes. Serves about 10. 

Total cost for this dish is about 50 cents per serving.

Low Income vs. Poor

Hubby and I are a low income family, sometimes we're even poor.

I make this distinguishment a lot, for a good reason.

Being low income doesn't mean that you have to be poor.

The definition of low income is a family that is supported by an income or incomes that are below average. The average adjusted gross income for the state we live in is $51,000. Hubby and I make significantly less than that. In fact the poverty level income for my area is $15,730 (for a family of two); we make more than that but are closer to the poverty line than the average income.

Poor is defined as not having enough money for the basic things that people need to live properly.

We have enough money for the basic things that we need to live (food, shelter, sanitation, ect.) and things that are really nice to have but not essential (internet, Hulu). So while low income, most of the time we're not poor.

Planning my raised beds

I am in the middle of a 78 hour work week, it has been eight days since my last day off and I have to be back at work in 6 hours. Its weeks like this when sometimes I need to step back and do something fun like garden planning!

I've already decided that I'm going to use raised beds to garden when we get out to our property there are a few reasons for this:

1. The natural soil VERY, VERY sandy and not at all nutreint dense. 

2. I have a bad knee (ski injury) and crawling around all day hurts.

3. I HATE weeds. 

So in my perfect world where money is no object and I can have whatever I want I would have 6-8  waist high raised beds with a non-soil growing medium. I haven't done all of the math but the cost for the lumber alone would be $120 per bed and each bed would require 4.4 cubic yards of material to fill. For reference topsoil costs about $60 for five cubic yards and soilless growing medium is more expensive than topsoil. All told ONE raised bed for a cost of +$200 for a total garden cost of at least $1200 is not practical for my family. 

Obviously I need to bring the cost down, so how about 6-8 sixteen inch high raised beds with a raised bed mixture of 60% top soil, 30% compost and 10% potting soil? This cuts my lumber costs in half so $60 and each raised bed will require approximately 1.75 cubic yards of material to fill. This means I will need 1 cubic yard of top soil ($12 per bed), .5 cubic yards of compost and about 5 cubic feet of soilless growing medium (potting soil). Compost costs about $20 per cubic yard so $10 per bed and potting soil will run $14 per 2.5 cubic foot bag so $28 per bed. That brings our total cost to $110 per bed . Still not cheap but I want to get at least a decade of use out of these beds so I think its a reasonable place to spend money and with this plan I don't have to spend a few years fighting ALL THE WEEDS.

Can this project be done for less money? YES! My mom built her raised bed for cost of about $20 as she used soil out of the garden and only needed to purchase the lumber, my sister built her raised beds out of pallet wood and garden soil for a total cost of $0. Cool, right?

The Cost of Food

I like meat, I am a meat eater. I like cheese and butter and milk. I like eggs and fresh vegetables.

The problem with liking those things if you're on a low income is they are EXPENSIVE. A gallon of milk in my town costs $3.49 - $4.99 depending on where it is purchased. A pound of cheese is $11.99, a pound of ground beef (the cheap stuff) is $3.59. That may not sound like much but consider that the cost of home made burgers with boxed mac and cheese costs about $8.75 in just ingredients. That is almost a hour's worth of work just to pay for dinner. At seven dinners per week that is over six hours worth of work just to pay for one meal for a whole week. Figure breakfast and lunch into the mix at half the cost and it brings the total up to twelve hours worth of work to pay for food for a week for two people. That means that at current work hours nearly 20% of our working time would be spent paying for food.

Realistically that's impossible, if I spent 20% of our combined money on food we would be homeless. What does that mean? We go without. We never go hungry but we aren't eating things that are good for us and we aren't eating things that we like and it effects our quality of life. For lack of a better term it makes us feel poor.

The same holds true for vegetables. Canned vegetables (least nutritious, most processed) are by far less expensive than fresh or frozen vegetables. Do we eat vegetables, yes. Are they canned, usually.

Its a vicious cycle. While we don't spend 20% of our income on food I know many families that do. Hubby and I are lucky because we are in a position to break out of the cycle of constantly being short and doing without. A lot of people aren't that lucky.

What can I do?

Admittedly Hubby and I are lucky. We have a piece of land to move to as soon as we get the money, we both have steady jobs, even if they aren't what we would choose, and we both have wonderful support structures in our friends and family. If anyone is in a position to "climb out of poverty" we are.

So what can you do if you aren't that lucky? Here are a couple of things that came to me:

1. Dream
2. Make a Budget
3. Audit yourself
4. ????
5. Profit

In more detail:

1. Dreams
These can be as lofty as 'end world hunger' or as simple as 'eat at least one meat meal per week' the only requirement is it is something you aren't doing right now.

2. Make a Budget

It might seem a little silly if the only thing your budget shows is red but do it anyway and use it to set doable goals, for me it was the times that I knew our checking account was going to be overdrawn. I've been trying to see those times coming and cover the amount. I haven't missed one yet. It is a lot easier to find an extra $60 when you know that you need it two weeks ahead of time. 

3. Audit yourself

Keep track of not only how you are spending your money but how you are spending your time. Could you be doing something different with the 30 minutes in the morning between getting up and getting in the shower besides watching re-runs of Jon Stewart?

4. ????

Yes, I know its one step too far down but the questions marks are really appropriate here because step three looks different for everyone. Maybe instead of watching Jon Stewart in the morning you make a lunch to take to work so you don't have to buy lunch. Maybe you own your home and make a couple of hours a week to work on a home improvement project that will increase your equity. Maybe the change is a window box with some beans in it and a tomato plant on your front step. Little changes, easy changes. 

5. Profit

All of the things in step three ether save or make you money at a rate greater than the average rate of pay for someone who is low income or increase your quality of life in a measurable way. I think that counts as profit. 

My $111 Conundrum

I find myself in a very uncomfortable place. In this place health insurance is too cheap to not purchase. $111? For 2 people! And this is for real actual adult health insurance. Not catastrophic coverage or with a super high deductible. It would actually bring first world health care into our reach.

I'm looking for the $111 and I can't find it.

Winter is upon us. Hubby is soon to be on unemployment and I work part time. We both do side work but I'm so reluctant to take on another bill when I don't know if the money will be there every month. Is it there most months, probably. Is having it most months enough?

There are so many obvious plus sides to having health insurance. I could get my fertility thing figured out. Hubby could go see a doctor about his foot. We wouldn't have to constantly fear getting sick, we could have a baby.

All of that aside, the simple fact is if we get health insurance we ether need to give something up or find more consistent money because as things stand right now the money just isn't there.

Hiccup

Way to get off to a great start. Post were interrupted due to a family medical emergency (Dad is fine, cranky but fine) and will now resume. Sorry about that.

Grow my own food

The "deadline" on this dream is Spring 2016 (first planting) and I can't wait.

I love food, so does Hubby. We'll eat almost anything but we really prefer GOOD food.

Like this!

Now food like this is available for purchase in our area but the cost of buying that food is comparatively very high. For an example lets look at green beans:

Green beans in a can cost 49 cents per can here. Green beans from the farmer's market cost $3.00 per pint. The amount of green beans is similar in both situations. So for the cost of one pint of good, fresh green beans I can buy six cans of green beans which don't taste as good and contain a lot of salt but are still green beans. 

There are weeks where our grocery budget is $25 for two people. On those weeks I cannot justify spending 11% of my grocery budget on a side dish for one meal, but I WANT TO. Solution? Grow it. 

The cost of a packet of green bean seeds is about $1.00, one pack of seeds will plant a whole row of beans and produce many, many pints of beans, maybe even more pints than Hubby and I can eat. Extra pints of beans can be converted back into time/money at the farmer's market at a rate of $3 per pint and extra pints can also be canned or frozen for later use so ideally there is little waste. Theoretically some of the beans can even be dried and used to grow more beans the following year. Theoretically it turns into a INFINITE SUPPLY OF GREEN BEANS WHICH I CAN USE TO RULE THE WORLD!!!!

Sorry, not sure where that came from.

So I add my green bean profits (from the farmer's market) to what I saved by not buying green beans at the store (I can use that money for other things now) and subtract the cost of growing the beans and the cost of my time. 

What will I make? I have no idea. 

There are waaayyy to many unknowns in that equation to know if growing green beans is an efficient use of my time. What I do know is I will be getting, for myself and my family, the very best food that can be had. It will be non-GMO, locally sourced, (mostly) organic and FRESH, I will know how much salt is in the can of green beans that I'm opening and I'll know when they were canned. I will also be spending less money at the grocery store which translates to less time at work or more money to use other places. 

Less time, more money, MUCH better food = why this is a dream.