pinching my pennies

We pinch pennies around here. BIG TIME.
Especially when it comes to the grocery budget. Why you ask? well, quite honestly, this is where I tend to overspend the most. So, a little over a year ago we instituted a new plan

Each week, on Friday morning typically, I withdraw $100 in cash from our checking account. That cash has to cover all the food and consumables we need to purchase (consumables = toilet paper, dish soap, furnace filters, trash bags, etc.) sounds easy right? Wrong. You'd be amazed to see how fast that $100 gets spent. It's tough but, if I want to continue staying home with Levi we have to hit a zero balance or better each month so, here are my tricks of the trade (aside from cloth diapering, breastfeeding, and babyfood making of course - although those three are HUGE penny savers).

Ad Matching: Our local discount-grocer will honor other grocery stores' advertised prices IF (and that's a big if) you bring the paper ad with you. So each Wednesday I go through those ads, find the super low prices, and circle them so I can see if the ad gives me a better deal than our grocery store does.

Coupons: I don't use many coupons. We don't get the newspaper anymore (I get the grocery ads from our neighbor when she's done with them) but every once in a while I'll get some coupons in the mail.

Buying in large quantities: When something is on sale for a STEAL, I buy a TON of it. Of course, only if it's something I use a lot of. Examples: we have currently 16 boxes of cereal, 20lb of jasmine rice, and a whole lot of cans of tomatoes. Why? because they were the cheapest I'd ever seen them. I keep a record of these "cheapest prices" and when they go lower, I snag the deal. We never buy a box of cereal for more than $1.99, and I won't buy tomatoes that are over $.48 a can.

Paying attention to "price per unit": Not all cereal boxes or cans or bags of shredded cheese were created equal. I bring a calculator with me to the store and divide the item price by the number of ounces in the package to determine whether it would be cheaper to buy the small container or the larger one on a per-unit basis. You may be surprised to know that it's cheaper for us to buy small yogurts than it is to buy the large container (which is easier for Jonathan's lunch making anyhow) and occasionally this is true for applesauce cups/applesauce jugs also.

Serving sizes/Left overs management: So basically, I tend put too much on our plates. Typically we don't finish everything and something gets wasted. Bad form, I know. So I started dishing us up smaller portion sizes. THEN, before bed, I divy the rest up into one quart freezer ziplocks (genius invention). These bags fit enough in them for two servings of just about anything. Lentil soup, pasta sauce, enchiladas, meatloaf, you name it. Into the freezer they go for another night and now I don't have to wonder if we'll ever get around to actually finishing that left-over before it goes bad. Oh, and our fridge doesn't become a mess. Double bonus!

Last but not least, I read THIS blog written by friends of Jonathan and I from Washington. They have twelve children, eight of which are still at home. They are doing an experiment called 10-for-10-for-10. You should really check it out. (in case you need a hint, they're trying to feed 10 family members, for 10 dollars perday, for 10 weeks. Fascinating!)

So, what are your penny pinching strategies?
- Melissa

Dance of the diapers

Do you cloth-diaper?
well, I'm no expert. That's for sure. But I've definitely learned my fair share over the past nearly 11 months. Our "stash" as some would call it includes some prefolds, and some all-in-twos, but mostly one-size pockets. If you didn't understand any of that then this may be a post you'd prefer to skip :)
So anyway, over the past few months my diapers began to smell more and more of ammonia. That's normal. Babies pee in diapers, pee is FULL of ammonia. Eventually, diapers will smell. The trick is getting the smell out, or altering your wash/dry system such that smells don't linger in the first place.

My stink issues were BAD. I won't lie.
Thinking there might be an *easy* solution, I tried the frequently suggested "calgon" - a product designed to remove sediment from clothing which has been washed over and over in hard water. We have hard water, I figured this might be our issue. Sorry, that wasn't it.
So my second course of action was to bleach them. "BLEACH??" (I can hear the screams from across the country) yes, bleach. It's ok to bleach your diapers once in a very great while. Do it too much and not only will you break down your diapers, but you'll burn your baby's sweet little tush. But once in a while it's ok. Well - lo and behold - bleach didn't do the trick.

Then I turned to my favorite bio-safe cleaner and yours: Bac-out. I had high hopes for it's lime peel and bacteria-eating enzymes - but alas, no dice.
Then it was time to pull out the big guns: Stripping. Stripping diapers. (Get your mind out of the gutter) Like bleach, I've been warned that this is a "once-in-a-blue-moon" procedure. So I proceeded with caution. Diaper stripping is done with Dawn unscented dish soap. The theory is that some diapers stink because there is left-over detergent and other crud built up in the diaper's fibers. Add a squirt of dish soap to the laundry, do about a million hot rinses until all of the bubbles disappear and viola! your diapers should be stink free. - unless of course they're mine, in which case they will mysteriously still have a faint odor. Maybe I'm the only one who can smell it, but DUDE, it drives me NUTS!I was lost for words.

Then, as I was perusing reviews on The Pin I came across this stuff: Rockin' Green Soap. Ok, Ok, I'd heard about it before, but I wasn't a believer until I watched their two videos. Still skeptical, I ordered two samples of "Hard Rock" (made for folks like me with extra hard water, and, consequently, a non-functional water-softener) in lavender-vanilla, and fresh linen scents. ("woah woah woah - you mean to tell me you used scented detergent on your diapers" yes. yes I did. but it's safe for diapers. I promise. Keep reading)It arrived, I kid you not, just as I was getting diapers started for the morning. Following the directions I rinsed my dipes in cold, then let them hot-soak with 3TBS of Hard Rock for one hour. I continued with a wash cycle, then a cold rinse (no second rinse needed!) and PRESTO CHANGO! no more stink!

Sold. I'm SO sold.
If I could post a scratch-and-sniff picture I totally would.

When I'm not looking

I watch my son a lot
In fact, I'd say, even when I'm NOT watching him (i.e. leaving him to play in a safe place while I - say - unload the dishwasher) I check on him every minute or less. Even in a safe place, it's amazing the trouble my nearly 11 month old can get himself into. Currently his favorite place to be is, by far, the laundry basket. I was standing in the kitchen, behind the baby gate when I witnessed this string of events:What a monkey you are, son. What a monkey you are. Maybe one day you'll be a laundry FOLDING monkey instead of just a laundry-throwing-about monkey. Then again, that could be wishful thinking.

Levi, Cristoph, and Daisy Mae

So last Saturday the three of us got up early - who am I kidding we get up at 6:00 every morning, not by desire mind you, but because the "alarm clock" in the room next to ours reminds us that it's time to nurse and play. Anyhow, we spent the day digging up our green-hippie-northwest-recycling-composting-clothdiapering-organicbuying-roots. We started by heading to a consignment sale at one of our our local cloth-diaper retail stores.

IT WAS A ZOO IN THERE!

I left without any diapers. Quite honestly, I left before I even made it up to the table with the cloth diapers on it - I couldn't shove my way through with a baby in a sling on my hip. It was crazy. I bought a lovely "nursing necklace" and we made our way out.

Then where to? Why, the local co-op of course! As we pulled into the Open Harvest parking lot we knew something was up. Right there, in the middle of everything, was a cow. Yes, a dairy cow. and - wait for it - her calf. Prairieland Dairy was busily handing out samples of their delightful milk (not like I would know it's delightful, I haven't been able to drink fluid milk since last July - a story to fill you in on another day). So Levi met a new friend. Enter: Christoph. Although Christoph is quite a bit younger than Levi (just 6 weeks old I believe) they're both milk-lovers. I can't decide who's cuter in these pictures. Maybe you can?Well, we couldn't leave without a picture of the two mommies. Sometimes Levi makes me feel like one of these:
And with our visit winding to a close we were off to buy an electric car, build an Earthship, plant a forest, and sustainably raise goats in our back yard - or maybe just to go home and eat lunch.
- Melissa

Customers

You know, it's rare that I take a picture of anything other than my adorable baby these days. True, these photos may also include other individuals, but they are rarely devoid of Levi. I maintain that my camera has a Levi addiction - but that's just my claim. Believe whatever you want.
However, a few days back, something caught my eye. Not long ago - ok, January - we hung a lovely bird feeder off the corner of our garage. It was a Christmas gift from my parents. Lo and behold it attracted some beautiful "customers" right off the bat. Now, as spring approaches, I can't wait to see if these two will bring us some of their offspring for us to feast our eyes upon. What beauties they are, don't you think?Mr. Cardinal is bright red, while Mrs. Cardinal is beige with a bright red beak. Would you believe he actually cracks seeds and feeds them to her one-by-one. What a gentleman! These two are frequent customers and I hope to continue greeting them each morning. Now if only I could do something about those pesky blackbirds...

All about pot - a pot named Ruby.

I try not to be a worldly person - that is to say, someone who spends too much time dwelling on what this world has to offer. This world is not my home after all... but there's just one little thing I have a problem with...

Kitchen gear. I have a serious kitchen gear problem.

It started with fancy schmancy can openers and garlic presses. Soon I was into blenders and stand mixers. Before I knew it my problem had escalated - into cookware. Not just any cookware though, Le Creuset cookware.
"What is Le Creuset" you ask? take a look, see for yourself. Hand forged, cast-iron perfection, coated in life-time guaranteed enamel, and that's only the beginning. So, may I please have the pleasure of introducing you to (da da da daaaaaaaaaa) Ruby:

3.5 quarts and 12" x 3" of braising beauty. A stovetop/ovenproof/dishwasher safe/freezer-refrigerator compatible marvel of mankind. The impliment with which I will hatch my plan for mastery of all things seared-then-slow-cooked.

So, what I'm saying is, I have a weak point. Is that so wrong?

Yes, Yes... I know

It's been WAY too long.You needn't remind me, I'm well aware.who - might I ask - knew that having a baby - one tiny little baby - could change your world so much?
DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HAVE WARNED ME??
Seriously people.

Anyway. Things in the Hnosko household are largely, well, wonderful to put it lightly. After a VERY rough first five months (oh yes, I did just say five) we emerged from Levi's colicky newborn phase victorious, and with just a few bits of knowlege we hadn't had before. First: Breastfed babies need to be fed "on demand". This means that, no matter how much you like having a schedule, no matter how linear, and no matter how desiring of control you are, if you want to bring in an ample milk supply, and you want a moderately peaceful household you should probably just feed your baby when he requests food. Whew. Took me a while to get that.
Second: Babies Cry. Sometimes they cry for a reason. Other times they just cry. Some cry more than others. Mothers who cannot soothe their babies can, at times, feel worthless (my case in point). but rest assured, all babies are inconsolable at some point and, really, it isn't your fault.

Third: (personal opinion alert!) "colic" is a word that's thrown around a lot. MANY well meaning people told us our baby was probably "colicky". I used the phrase myself from time to time. What we came to learn was that our baby had an intolerance to boy dairy and soy proteins... soooo, when mommy ate wonderful goodies like cheese, and sour cream, and tofu, and milk chocolate, etc etc. baby would get the world's worst tummy ache. We ironed this out somewhere around 4 months and never looked back. Think your baby has "colic"? e-mail me, we'll chat.

And now, without further adeau, some recent photos of my nearly 10 1/2 month old trouble maker - the child who has now been banned from the kitchen for eating things I SWORE I swept up, and for tearing through the trash can one-too-many times; The sweet babe who I found recently reaching into the toilet and snacking on some dripping toilet paper; and yes, the same little one who sleeps peacefully in my arms at night before bed. This child:Could that child steal your heart? He sure has stolen mine!
- Melissa