Category Archives: frugal strategies

Why I bought an overpriced, beat up freezer

food preservation, frugal strategies, homemaking

This summer, I saw a used freezer listed for sale. It was priced too high, and when I went to take a look at it saw that it wasn’t cosmetically the best. A shelf was missing from the main freezer, a shelf support was missing on the door, and someone had tried to repaint over the very bottom. And the owner was only willing to go down a hundred shekels on the price.

When I buy used, I like to buy things that are in excellent condition – it doesn’t have to look brand new but I want it to look really good. And I like to buy things that are a good deal. Nothing about this freezer was a match for me.

Except for one important feature… and I bought this beat up old freezer! Why in the world did I do that?

With my oldest daughters married and my older teenagers all not available, I was feeling maxxed out and realized I needed some kind of help. The younger boys were a big help but I didn’t want to ask too much of them, and I couldn’t keep doing everything else myself – the shopping, the cooking, the laundry, the cleaning, the million and one other things that go with being a parent and keeping a house running. And homeschool. And spend relaxed time with my children. And give parenting classes. And see clients privately.

Too much.

Either I was going to have to pay someone to cook or clean for me (which in 26 years I had never done), or I was going to have to find some other kind of help.

This was my solution. This 14 year old massive American freezer that wouldn’t win any contests for looks.

freezer overview

The winning feature? Its size.

They don’t make freezers this big here; this was  brought over on a lift when someone moved here. I knew the additional space would allow me to cut down on how often I shopped and maximize good deals when I found them. I’d be able to cook in advance and save time on busy evenings. That would mean fewer things taking up my time and energy.

I paid 600 shekels and while it wasn’t technically worth more than 500 max, it was worth every shekel to me!

I’ve already saved tons of money by stocking up on chicken when the prices are low. And I’ve saved travel time and shopping time and gas costs in being able to shop less often. But more than the money savings – and that’s a significant reason to have a freezer – this has made my life so much easier!

It’s kind of like having a personal assistant. Kind of. Because while I still have to do the work, I can maximize my efforts by preparing two times the recipe, serving one and freezing one for a different night.

I can’t tell you how much I love this!

Here’s the picture tour. 🙂

 

freezer top

Top shelf: frozen meals (each labeled on top – the labels on the side tend to fall off).

Second shelf down: on the left, frozen chicken breasts and whole chicken. Bought on sale, of course. About 25 kg at this moment.

On the right side are lunches for my husband to take to work – he takes one out every evening before going to bed and it’s defrosted when he leaves early in the morning.

 

freezer middle

Here’s my solution to the missing shelf. I didn’t want to waste all that space and it was way too high a space to stack things.

I got these stackable plastic crates for free from two different supermarkets – crates of vegetables are packed in these and then thrown away. It would be nice if they fit perfectly and used every bit of space but it’s pretty darn good! This is all chicken wings; I bought 30 kg when they were on sale for 4.90 a couple of weeks ago.

freezer bottom

On the shelf under the chicken wings are frozen vegetables and fish.

The bottom is a pull out drawer and it filled with bags of cooked and shredded or sliced chicken gizzards to the left, and bags of frozen mashed bananas on the right.

(And on the very bottom you see the scuffy paint job. At some point when it’s empty, I’m going to clean it all out, scrape out the old paint and silicone it. I think that would look much better. But even though it’s ugly it’s still very usable so there’s no urgency to do this any time soon.)

In the door I have bags of cooked beans and other odds and ends. I have a couple of ideas of how to build a substitute door support for the top door shelf, but I haven’t needed the space yet so again, not pressing.

And now that I’ve reworked the space in our new kitchen area, we have room for a fridge and the freezer side by side, so it’s super convenient and easy to access.

I’m telling you, the simple things in life can make such a huge difference!

Avivah

 

Cutting food costs to build savings, weekly menu plan

frugal strategies, menu plans

In the next 3.5 years, we’ll be making three bar mitzvas (the first of which is five months away).

Not only that, in the next 1.5 – 2 years, two of our children are likely to start dating for the purpose of marriage, which means funding two more weddings.

Those are all substantial expenses.  You can make frugal bar mitzvas and be cost conscious about weddings but frugal still isn’t free. Not at all.

During a recent conversation with my husband, we both agreed we’d like to be more intentional about our spending in order to increase our savings towards these big expenses.

Did you know that food is the second biggest expense for most people, after their mortgage/rent payments?  That’s why it makes sense to look at your spending on food if you want to create some financial leeway.

No, being more frugal with shopping and cooking alone won’t create tens of thousands of shekels of savings in two years but nonetheless, there’s a lot more saving potential in the small things than you might think!

So with that in mind, I’m setting a goal for myself to cut our food costs and channel the savings into, well, savings!

I find menu planning in the winter so much easier than in the summer, since thick stews and filling soups are appreciated by everyone!

Here’s the menu plan for this week:

Sunday: l – pitas with butter; dinner –  crustless turkey pot pie and kasha

Monday: l – bean burgers; d – salmon chowder

Tuesday: l – white bean shakshuka; d – ground beef sauce with spinach and baked potatoes

Wednesday: d – winter lentil soup

Thursday: d – chicken chili with white beans

You’ll notice that I haven’t planned out every meal – that’s because I sometimes use leftovers from dinner for lunch.  When I purposely cook double, I put it in the freezer for a meal a week or two later.

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Last week ds11 and I went to pick up our order for 20 kg of coconut oil at the baking supply store I periodically order from.

I heard about a different wholesale store and since it was just 20 km away from the baking supply store (well at least on the map – naturally it took longer than I anticipated), decided to check it out after picking up the coconut oil.  It was reminiscent of the bulk shopping trips I used to make in the US, though smaller in scale, and I appreciate now having a car makes this a doable outing.

This store sells only bulk quantities and though the price difference on some items was unimpressive, on others it was significant. It was an exhausting shopping trip and while at first I wasn’t sure I would go back because it was so frustrating that they didn’t have prices or the minimum necessary purchase listed on lots of items nor could anyone working there other than a cashier help. But next time I’ll go early in the day when I’m better rested and I’ll know what to expect.

I’ve been trying out new recipes lately to integrate more beans into our family meals. So far all the new experiments have been very well received.

I’ve shared before about how helpful it is for me to soak and then cook large quantities of beans at one time, then to freeze them into portion sizes for easy use when I want to use them to cook with. It bears repeating since it’s a huge time and money saver!  (I’ll try to write about how this can be a starting place for a snowball savings.)

Dd22 opened up my freezer when she visited, and when seeing my bags of cooked beans and mashed bananas lining the freezer door commented that my freezer looks like hers, but in larger quantities! She’s grown up with these strategies so I suppose they’re second nature.

Another thing I regularly do is purchase a large quantity of gizzards. They are inexpensive pound for pound since there are no bones, very nutritious and very versatile. I usually cook up about 8 kilos of turkey gizzards, and a similar quantity of chicken gizzards.

Once they’re cooked, I slice the turkey gizzards and shred the chicken gizzards (using a food processor – I used to do it by hand and it took way too long!), then freeze meal sized portions. It’s so easy to pull it out for meals – I use shredded chicken in place of ground beef, and the sliced turkey in place of other dishes that call for a larger cut. For 208 shekels, I have between 16 – 20 family meals of cooked chicken ready to be used.

Avivah

 

Tips for eating healthy on a budget

food preservation, frugal strategies, homemaking

There is a commonly expressed frustration about how expensive it is to eat healthy on a budget. And it’s true that specialty products and organics tend to be quite pricey.

While in the US I had different shopping techniques and resources that dramatically cut my cost on even those specialty foods, there are some basic tips that apply wherever you live.

  • Eat simply.  Stay away from specialty ingredients, and stick to the basics. I don’t try to serve meals that will grace magazine pages – I want food that will be filling and nutritious for my family.

For example, for breakfast I mostly make hot cereal (oatmeal, polenta, rice pudding) or eggs. There was a long period during which I made quick breads, muffins and breakfast casseroles but I don’t have the energy or additional kitchen helpers for that now.

For Shabbos breakfast I make granola, yogurt (for 23 shekels I can make close to four liters with minimal time and effort( or buy cornflakes (I get 1.5 kilos of cornflakes for 20 shekels – this is enough for two or three weeks for our family.) Nothing exciting but it’s affordable, filling and tastes good.

Sample costs: for oats and rice I pay 10 shekels for 1.4 kilos, polenta is 10.90 a kilo. I use up to half a kilo to make enough for a generous breakfast when everyone is home (a third of a kilo is plenty otherwise). This is a maximum of 5.50 shekels for my biggest batch, which is enough for 8 kids, four of whom eat adult quantities.  I pay 24 shekels for 30 eggs (80 agurot per egg) – the younger kids eat two, the older kids have three each.

  • Know what prices are so you can recognize a good deal. Over the holiday season, chicken prices went through the roof. A couple of weeks later, my husband bought some whole chickens that he thought were a good price. They were a very good price – for the holiday season. The price was only okay two weeks later.

Many years ago I created a price book to get a clear idea of how much I was paying for each ingredient that I cooked with per pound. It was super helpful to get this kind of clarity. While I don’t have the need to do that now, I have a pretty good sense of what a good price is for most of the items I regularly buy.

If you don’t have any idea what a good price is, take some time to create a price book. It’s basically a listing of how much you pay per unit for each item that you regularly purchase. It’s really worth it – it will give you the confidence to know when something is a really good price or just an average price.

  • Buy on sale. Many stores have weekly loss leader sales. Right before the holiday season I bought about 20 whole chickens because the price was so good. The butcher told me that the store owner was selling the chicken for four shekels a kilo less than the price he paid for it!

Why would he do that, you might wonder? To get people into the store, since most people will buy other things not on sale once they’re already there. I have saved so, so much money like this. It’s always interesting to me that I shop in the same stores as everyone else but I spend much less – this is one reason why.

Here’s an old post of mine on tips for saving on food – they are still useful!

  • Buy seasonal. Whatever is grown in that season will be less expensive. 

If you pay attention, you’ll start to notice seasonal trends – for example, cabbage and avocados are getting very cheap right now, at the same time that tomatoes and cucumbers are going up.

That means that for example, though in the summer months I make lots of tomato salad, in the winter I shift to other vegetables.  in the winter tomatoes are out of season and the price goes up, so I shift away from tomatoes. I hardly use avocados once the weather is warm but use loads in the cool weather! This is one reason I don’t have a yearly menu plan – because that would necessitate buying ingredients regardless of the pricing.

  • Stock up when the prices are low. It’s worth finding some extra pantry space so you’ll have a place to store things so you can stock up when the prices are low. There are things you know you’ll need week after week – why spend more than you have to?

Don’t think that means that your budget will go wild – it won’t. Some weeks you’ll buy more of one thing, other weeks you’ll buy more of something else. It all balances out.

Stocking up also applies to perishables. While it’s not practical to buy massive amounts of fresh produce if you’re not going to be able to use it before it goes bad, consider preserving it in some way (freezing, drying, canning). This week I saw ripe bananas marked down to 2.50 shekels a kilo – I bought two cartons full. As soon as I got home, they were peeled, mashed and frozen in two cup portions for future use in baked goods and shakes.

Here are some examples of things that can be preserved and how to do them – if this interests you, I have separate categories in the archives with many posts on specific food preservation projects I did.

Making strawberry jam and canning cherries bought on sale

My first canning experience – turkey bought on sale

Canning to the rescue – preserving produce before it goes bad

Explaining food dehydration

  • Buy in bulk. There are some items that are much cheaper when bought in bulk. For me these are mostly specialty ingredients – things like raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, shredded coconut, coconut flour, almond flour, coconut oil.

But make sure you know what a good price is – don’t assume that because it’s being sold in bulk it’s cheaper. Often it is, but sometimes the savings is so small that it’s not worth the extra storage space or the large initial financial outlay.

How to buy in bulk

Buying in bulk through supermarkets

Add legumes. Beans are super affordable and versatile. There are many, many ways to serve them and they can extend your food budget considerably. That makes more room for the pricier foods that you’d like to include.

How to get kids to eat beans

Kitchen progress, my new tiling project just for fun

frugal strategies, homemaking

After an extended push during the summer for a couple of weeks to get our kitchen renovation done, we were left with a lot of details remaining when the school year began.

As much as I wanted everything finished asap, I made the decision to consciously slow down and not be uptight about things taking longer than I wanted.  The intense non-stop pace of the initial project was incredibly draining and I didn’t want to burn myself or my boys out getting it all finished.

It was a good choice to make, because it allowed me to set things to the side during the busy start of school year period, followed by the non-stop busy holiday period. I was able to do the things I needed to do then without stressing about the unfinished kitchen and bedroom work.

My eleven year old son told me a couple of days ago, “I like how we’re working on the house now. It’s not so fast but it’s not pressured and it’s actually fun.” Exactly.

When I allow myself the time and don’t tell myself I should have gotten it all done already, I enjoy doing the renovation work! My current attitude is that it will all get done when it gets done, and it’s okay for it to take as long as it takes. I can’t tell you how freeing that is.

This past week I glued on laminate strips to the exposed cabinet surfaces in the kitchen and tiled half of the toekick surface (the toekick is the recessed surface under the kitchen cabinets). I planned to finish the toekick tiling today but we ran out of glue. Oh, well, another day. While the kitchen and bedroom are fully functional, what remains are the small aesthetic details like these, and getting these done make a big difference!

I also tiled the backsplash behind the stove late Thursday night. That was a gift to myself, to have something nice to look at while cooking for Shabbos the next day. 🙂

I spent the last of my renovation budget before I bought tiles for the kitchen walls. While I didn’t want to leave the area untiled because water could drip between the cabinets and the wall and also the bare walls aren’t attractive, I’m committed to living within my financial means. That meant waiting until we have more money set aside to complete the tiling rather than putting it on a credit card.

I figured we would silicone the gap for now. I then ‘happened’ to be purchasing a completely non-home improvement related item from a private seller. We were chatting about why she was selling it and she mentioned decluttering her storage area. She also said she had a large number of tiles she was selling. Tiles, hmm??

Though I didn’t expect to find anything, I came back the next day to take a look in the daylight. I was pleasantly surprised to find that she had a large number of cream subway tiles that were just the right match for my kitchen. I was able to buy them for a very good price, using just 100 shekels from my weekly food budget to buy all the tiles I needed for the kitchen.

(They were such a good price that I decided to use 400 shekels of discretionary personal funds – birthday money from years ago! – to buy more tiles to tile the porch walls, a project that isn’t necessary or at all related to the kitchen/bedroom renovation but one I want to do for my own enjoyment.)

After buying these tiles I then went to the tile store to find some tiles that would be a focal point to add visual interest over the stove. However, after an hour of looking at every single tile in the store, I still couldn’t find anything suitable (the ones I liked most were also really expensive – as in, 80 – 200 shekels per tile!). The challenge was that I needed something to match the cream of the tiles and the gray of the countertop, but the tiles were either gray and white toned and wouldn’t match the cream subway tiles, or were cream and brown, and wouldn’t match the gray countertop. Dilemma.

A day later I was setting up a tile sample for the porch walls and asked my husband for his opinion. I had purchased nine patterned tiles from the same private seller with the intention of staggering them along the center porch wall, but was thinking of doing a more interesting tile pattern in cream and not using the patterned tiles at all. Combining the two different tile sizes was complicated and would necessitate a lot of tile cutting, and tile cutting would make my just-for-fun project not so fun.

My husband agreed that sticking to only cream would be best for the porch, and suggested I used the patterned tiles instead for the kitchen backsplash. Amazingly, these grayish brownish tiles that I already purchased but had never even considered for use in the kitchen (that the seller told me had been ridiculously expensive) were the perfect match and the perfect quantity!

kitchen backsplash

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The reason I consider tiling the porch walls a personal fun project is that there’s plenty of space to work with no one needing to use that space and no need to be exacting in the details – all factors that don’t exist in the inside renovation work.

Here are what the porch walls looked like before tiling – when we moved here the walls were peeling and horrible. I’ve spackled and they look much, much better – but pleasant to look at they aren’t!

porch walls before

Below is the first wall that I began tiling – this wall was the most unsightly and I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of it before I began! I intend to complete all the tiling before doing the grouting. It’s been so enjoyable to work on this this….the boys came outside to sit with me and asked if they could help. That’s the secret to getting kids to want to work with you – when they see you enjoying yourself they want to get involved, too.  🙂

porch walls after

I have about fifteen meters of tiling to do on the porch –  so far I’ve done about two so there’s plenty left to work on!

Avivah

Now the plumbing work begins

frugal strategies, homemaking, parenting

The main wall is down, the secondary wall is down but this is just the beginning of turning our boys bedroom into a kitchen!

Today was the first part of the next stage – having the plumbing and gas lines wired in. We also are having additional electric outlets put in.

It’s been a very loud and messy day and I’m so happy that I made arrangements for ds6 and ds18months to be at a camp for this period! They would have been so stressed and frightened of all the noise of the jackhammer and banging, not to mention that an active work zone isn’t a safe place for young children.

Overview of the new kitchen in progress - day 1
Overview of the new kitchen in progress

When I first considered this project, I thought we’d have to move the water lines from the current kitchen across the main living area and through the new kitchen area. Then I wondered if perhaps we could connect it to the bathroom plumbing, which I was told was possible.

The bathroom and laundry room
The bathroom and laundry room – replumbed; gas and water lines also added

That seemed a lot more convenient, but we’d still have to rip up the floor across our home in order to put in a new gas line.

Then ds10 suggested we hook up the new gas lines to our laundry room gas outlet – brilliant! It didn’t occur to me at all  – that boy saved us so much time and work with his idea. So while we’ll need to replace the laundry room and bathroom floor, most of the floor that isn’t in the active work zone will remain intact.

Here’s the hallway leading from the bathroom on the left to the new kitchen area on the right. The new plumbing lines are at the top, the new electric lines are lower down.

renovation - hallway

Now you can see the new kitchen area – there is plumbing for two sinks (red and blue piping); the yellow piping contains the new gas line. To the right you can see the drilled space for one of the new outlets.

renovation - boys room

Obviously there’s nothing left of this as a bedroom for the boys anymore! We moved their bunkbeds (the ones we built almost two years ago) temporarily into the living room and moved the rest of the living room furniture out onto the porch. Good thing we have a large porch!

Three boys sleeping in their relocated bunks
Three boys sound asleep in their relocated bunks in living room

For day two, hopefully the electric outlets will be finished being installed and the plumbing will be completed. I’m planning to take the younger five boys on a day trip to the farm on Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim while this work continues in our absence, but need to make sure the boys’ closet unit is emptied before we leave. I knew we’d need to move it eventually but had hoped to be able to leave it in place a bit longer to minimize the upheaval and having even more stuff not in its place.

For now things are very much in flux and while it’s a necessary part of the process, it’s definitely disconcerting to have so much mess with so many things out of place.

Progress, progress! It’s true in the physical world and it’s true in the physical world that before things improve, they get a lot messier and more uncomfortable first!

Avivah

And let the wall come down – demolition fun for the boys!

frugal strategies, homeschooling, parenting

After weeks of mentally working through lots of details to see if my renovation brainstorm was doable or not, our newest project has begun!

I’ve been thinking and thinking how to increase the size of our main living area. While at 30 meters it’s a nice size for an Israeli apartment, it doesn’t feel especially spacious as our family continues to expand! I’ve had several ideas about how to maximize our  living space but vetoed them because all cost a LOT of money. But my latest idea actually seemed like a real possibility!

Here’s the idea: my younger boys’ room is behind a shared wall with the living room. For a while I’d been thinking of knocking this wall down once my youngest daughter gets married, and then moving the boys into her room. But since she’s only 17 marriage isn’t on the agenda for a while and in any case, that plan would mean I would lose a bedroom, which I really don’t want to do.

But…if I knock down that wall, and then turn the boys room into an open kitchen (and the kitchen into the boys room), the main area gets bigger, we don’t lose a bedroom, and the space becomes used much more efficiently.

The current kitchen is perfectly sized for a bedroom, while the boys bedroom is a large, awkwardly shaped room. It doesn’t have any direct light – all light comes from the enclosed patio off of it that is basically useless for anything other than storage – who wants to walk through a bedroom to get there? By opening up this wall, the light in that room and the air flow in the main area become significantly better.

Turning a bedroom into a kitchen and a kitchen into a bedroom is a big project. The plan is to keep the costs down by hiring out the the skilled work such as plumbing, electricity and laying gas lines, then doing all the rest ourselves. During my researching stage, it seems that just about everyone I mentioned my idea to was skeptical about our do-it-yourself intentions, which would be disheartening if I listened to all of those voices!

I’m going to be reusing the cabinets from the kitchen that we put in three years ago, which are really good quality and I’ve been very happy with them. One big question I have is about using the caeserstone countertops again or not. They were so expensive and would be workable in the new kitchen but I didn’t love how they looked then and after three years still don’t like how they look!  (I’m thinking very seriously of building our own laminate countertops but am concerned about running out of time before I can finish them.)

After all this thinking, the project has begun! The boys moved the set of bookcases that were on the wall I wanted to demolish – the plan was to clear the area so our handy man could take it down, but once it was clear they were disappointed that they weren’t going to ‘get a crack at it’. I then agreed to let them take a few swings at it using the heavy hammers I bought them the day before (I had them remove tiling along the base of the walls to prepare for retiling those areas). After all, doesn’t that sound like a good healthy outlet? (I did go over safety precautions and repeatedly told them ‘safety first’!)

I didn’t think they would make a dent in a concrete block wall. After all, this is physically very strenuous work; professionals would bring it down using a power saw that made strategic cuts in the wall and then a full sized sledgehammer (which my kids would hardly be able to lift, let along swing!)

I went out to do errands and came back an hour later to find two holes in the wall. It was so exciting for them and for me, too! I wish I had been able to get pictures of the entire process.

They kept at it the next day for hour after hour until they had the entire wall down.

Ds9
Ds9 – after this picture was taken they finished taking down the wall to the left

This was far from an easy task! The wall was mostly concrete block but at some point they ran into a huge horizontal pillar of solid concrete reinforced with rebar that spanned the length of the wall. I told them to hold off on knocking it down until I clarified if it was safe to remove it. I had already checked that the wall wasn’t a supporting wall, but what I saw led me to think that this was some kind of structural element.

Ds12 swinging on the final piece of rebar enforced cement
Ds12 swinging on the final piece of rebar enforced cement

I asked our handyman about it and he said it’s structural for the wall itself, not for the building, and safe to remove. Safe, but it was an insane amount of work.

Who did it, you may be wondering? Ds9, ds10, ds12, and ds16 helped out as well. They seriously know how to work, these boys! Not only did they do the demo using only hand held hammers, but they shoveled hundreds of pounds of broken concrete to load the containers for the construction waste removal company to remove. (So far we’re up to six full huge heavy duty ‘bags’ – here in Israel this quantity is known as a balla. It’s a LOT.)

We also decided to take down a small wall that separates the living room from the hallway. That wall creates some privacy but it also cuts off some usable space in the living room and we have a different idea of how to keep the privacy while opening up the space. That wall was a much easier job, since it was drywall.

Ds10 pounding a hole into the drywall
Ds10 pounding a hole into the drywall
Ds6 getting into the action!
Ds6 getting into the action, banging away at the wall!

This has been an empowering and enjoyable project for the boys, albeit exhausting! There’s something about doing a significant task and really putting yourself into it that builds up a child (and an adult, too!).

Avivah

 

How to get kids to eat beans

frugal strategies, homemaking, parenting

Whenever I post a weekly menu plan, there’s always someone who asks (and lot more people who are thinking!), ‘how do you get your kids to eat beans?? My kids would never touch that!”

Here are some tips that work for us:

a) When I add in ‘special’ or protein elements to a bean dish, that adds to the appeal. Hence a lentil salad would be ‘meh’, but when feta cheese is chopped up into the same salad it will be greeted with ‘yum!’ Chickpeas cooked with vegetables is kind of boring, but with a peanut sauce mixed in, much more appealing! Same thing with the burritos – by adding a little bit of shredded cheese to some beans and rice, it gets a significantly more positive reception.

b) The form the beans are served with also matters – bean stews are seen as blah by my kids, but if I make the same mixture into a burger or loaf, it gets gobbled up.

c) I usually add meat or chicken gravy or stock into the bean dishes that I cook to add a rich depth of flavor to the dish. I always save the gravy from roasted chicken for this purpose.

d) It’s not enough to make the bean dish look and taste good if you have the attitude that your kids will probably hate it! They pick up on that and respond accordingly.

Realize that beans are a kind of boring food – they don’t have much flavor on their own and need to be seasoned well. It’s also CRITICAL that they are cooked until completely soft. It is yuck to eat beans that are underdone and even a tiny bit of a crunch to them or even that mealy texture when they’re just cooked but not really soft!

There’s no way to get kids used to eating any kind of food without giving them opportunities to have them!  If one attempt isn’t successful, it doesn’t mean they’ll hate all beans – it means you need to find a different recipe!  My kids have grown up eating bean dishes and as a result, even without integrating any of the tips above, will eat them willingly. I can’t tell you they wouldn’t prefer hamburgers (so would I!) but beans are a staple in our pantry.

Avivah

Menu Plan – week of the Nine Days

frugal strategies, menu plans,

I was woken up by an early morning phone call by a friend inviting me to take a walk, and since Rafael also woke up from the ringing of the phone, I decided to take her up on it. I popped him into the stroller, had a pleasant morning walk, and then after getting home, made breakfast for everyone and by 9:30 am was able to sit down to plan the menu for the coming week.

There are weeks that I don’t plan my menu in advance, and though things always run more smoothly when I do, when it comes to the Nine Days things don’t go well at all if I don’t pre-plan. That’s because some of my quickie meals like baked chicken aren’t an option to fall back on this week, and vegetarian themed meals take more planning.

At least half of our meals during the week usually include chicken, so completely meatless meals are a significant shift for us.

Here’s our plan for the coming week.

Sunday: lunch – oat walnut burgers; dinner – vegetarian stuffed potatoes (toppings: sauteed onions and garlic, black beans, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese, sour cream)

Monday: l – lemony lentil salad with feta cheese; d – falafel, yogurt

Tuesday: l – tuna patties, potatoes; d – sweet potato chili, cornbread (gluten free)

Wednesday: l – tuna pasta salad (I make two versions – one has rice noodles for those who are gluten free); d – chickpea pot pie (will post recipe in a day or so)

Thursday: l – bean/rice/cheese burritos (I plan to have the kids make the tortillas since they enjoy that kind of thing); d – chickpea peanut stew

I currently have three large pans soaking: one filled with lentils, one with red beans, and one with chickpeas. Every couple of weeks I soak and cook a large amount of two or three kinds of legumes and pop them in the freezer in meal sized portions that can then be easily defrosted for quick use.

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On a different note, for the first time in a long time I made yogurt! My kids like having yogurt for Shabbos breakfast (along with cornflakes, granola and milk) and when I saw 2 liter containers of milk for 6.90, decided to do some yogurt making. Since I hadn’t made it in so long, I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. In fact when I froze part of the large batch that I made, I learned that it’s not something to do in the future – it completely changed the consistency!

I simplified the instructions I posted years ago in How to Make Yogurt. I used one small container of yogurt for the starter for four liters of milk, then covered the heated pot of milk with starter well and left it on the counter overnight. (Look at that post for details of the process so that these changes will make sense.) That was it! Since the weather is warm, there was no need to put it in the dehydrator or cooler to keep it warm.

Speaking of the dehydrator, that’s something else we’ve pulled out for the first time in years! I took it out with the intent to dehydrate chicken for my daughter and son-in-law to take on their two month trip to Thailand (they left this past week). Unfortunately, the fuse for the transformer blew right before I started and I couldn’t get to the store to buy a new fuse in time to prepare the chicken for them.

I bought a bunch of nectarines on sale and some were starting to get soft; I told the kids they could use those along with some overripe mangos to make breakfast shakes which they very happily did. Since the dehydrator was already out, ds12 then asked me if he could make fruit leather. I told him to go ahead and blend up the fruit, then spread it smoothly on the silicon sheets and put it in the dehydrator. He made a delicious batch of fruit leather with it – it’s so empowering for kids to see that they can make things like this on their own!

In other news, I’m planning an ambitious home renovation project. I’ve been thinking about how to do it frugally (of course!) and with minimum disruption to our family.  Thinking about all the pieces of this project has taken a huge amount of head space but I’m bit by bit putting the mental pieces together. We plan to begin the day after Tisha B’v, in just one week. More about what I want to do and why in another post!

Avivah

My significant life changing purchase – a car!

frugal strategies, homemaking, homeschooling, parenting, personal development

Thank you all for your good wishes on our new granddaughter! She was named yesterday and I’m looking forward to taking the younger boys to meet her later this week.

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In other significant for us news, we have become car owners!

When we moved to Israel almost seven years ago, we decided not to buy a vehicle because buying, maintaining and fueling a car here is so much more expensive than in the US. Public transportation is very good and a car seemed like an unnecessary luxury, particularly when we came here without a job and wanted to stretch our savings as long as possible.

It was a good decision then that really made sense,  and for the ensuing six years it continued to be a good choice. We felt comfortable not having a car, there was no sense of deprivation or doing without – in fact, it was a relief to me not to have to deal with a car.

However, this last year and particularly the last few months (since both of my older daughters got married) have become increasingly challenging for me. Since my five year old doesn’t consistently walk moderate distances when he’s tired and as of last July I refused to put him in a stroller, traveling by bus with him is something that I try to minimize. Without older children who can keep an eye on the younger ones when I go out, just getting the weekly grocery shopping done has become a pressure and that’s where my ‘free’ time goes.

I was increasingly feeling maxxed out with the little time for myself needing to be almost painfully carved out, and the time strain that was being created was significant. A couple of months ago, someone asked why this was an issue for me, since after all, I’ve been homeschooling for 18 years and was used to my kids being around. I told her, “I used to have a car and I could take the kids with me if I needed to go out; I wasn’t stuck and unable to go anywhere.” However, I didn’t consider the significance of my answer to her until last week.

That was when I recalled our brief conversation and it suddenly became obvious to me that this major issue that has significantly impacted the quality of my life would be shifted if I had a car.  Previously, I kept thinking that the issue would be resolved as my son became more mobile; car ownership was so off my mental map that it simply didn’t occur to me to revisit the initial decision we made when we moved here.

Well.

That conversation was suddenly catapulted to the front of my consciousness when I saw a car listed for sale on my local neighborhood list that seemed like it would be a good fit for us. I spent a couple of hours considering if it was ridiculously self-indulgent of me to have a car before calling my husband to let him know I thought we should seriously consider purchasing a car. My husband readily agreed since he had already mentioned several times in the past that at some point he wanted to get a car but I was the naysayer. (When we ran the numbers to check the anticipated expenses, his only question was, “Why didn’t we do this a long time ago?”)

Once I allowed myself to recognize how much having a car would shift this major energy block in my life, things moved very quickly. We bought a car the very next day.

I can say without exaggeration that after using it for just a few hours this afternoon and evening (and knowing this is something I can regularly do) my life has changed. No hyperbole.

This afternoon I was able to pop my tired five year old into the car and take him with me and ds9 on an errand. This errand is something I’ve wanted to do for almost three months but logistically it was too hard to do without a car.

So we zipped over to get it taken care of – in ten minutes it was done. The boys enjoyed watching the workmen cut down the mirror and reframe it, an experience they wouldn’t have had before since I would have left them at home. I’ve always loved having the kids be part of those daily experiences – each on its own is nothing major but they add up to enriching and expansive experiences.

Since we had plenty of time before swimming lessons began, we went to go the local community center to get ds5 a bus card with his photo on it. This errand has been on my list for months. He’s almost six and I wanted to get him one since he turned five. Now he has one!

We then noticed some activities taking place in the community center, which I learned were for families who have children with special needs. Maybe I never knew about this, maybe I was told about this and mentally dismissed it as completely irrelevant for us because getting out was just too hard.

In any case, today we joined them. It was so nice to watch ds5 play (he knew another child there from his Pesach camp), to chat with another mom, and to feel so relaxed. Relaxing and going out with my five year old haven’t been synonymous for me for quite some time.

From there we went to swimming lessons, and the biggest, most significant thing happened when the lessons were over.

We were home in five minutes.

Five minutes.

Instead of 45 minutes.

Instead of coaxing him to walk a little more. Instead of tugging at his hand and picking him up and then insisting that I can’t carry him and he’s going to have to walk, yada, yada, yada while he sits down and from sheer exhaustion refuses to move. Then finally getting to the bus stop, getting on the bus, and after getting off coaxing him again to walk the distance from the bus stop to our home. All over again.

We were home and I was still smiling and ds5 was still smiling and ds9 (who has lessons at the same time and is part of this weekly round trip experience) was still smiling. I had energy to give everyone dinner.  My husband probably did a double take when he walked in and wondered if it was really Sunday since I smiled and had a conversation with him with no mention of being so tired that I was about to collapse. Instead I enthusiastically told him how amazingly enjoyable ds5 is to spend time with when I don’t have to marshal all my resources to physically get him where he needs to go.

At 8:30 in the evening, rather than being comatose on the couch, I took ds12 to his swimming lessons (for the first time this season), and enjoyed watching him for 45 minutes before driving home together. (Today I learned that my two sons in group lessons are the best swimmers in their groups. They wouldn’t have told me because they don’t know that when they’re swimming and can’t hear what’s being said, the instructor tells the other students to watch what they’re doing. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t been there in person to see it.) It was really nice having this opportunity to spend time with ds12 and make a deposit in my relationship with him.

And here I am writing this now. It is almost 11:30 at night and I’m still able to think and reflect. The clarity of how deeply exhausting this aspect of my life has become after just one afternoon of not having to go through it is almost stunning to me.

Today I got things done quickly and easily. And that was nice. But what was even nicer was feeling doors swinging open. Doors of increased outings with my kids, increased time freedom and flexibility, increased community involvement and social connection, increased being present for others and myself.  And none of it feels hard. 

Letting go of hard required me to first be really honest about how constraining things had become. When things shift gradually over time, there’s not a sudden negative situation to deal with – and that makes it harder to recognize because one gets used to it bit by bit.  I started to recognize how many ‘nos’ I was saying to myself – and was willing to be open to a solution from a different angle.

It’s interesting that when ds19 called and I told him we had just bought a car a few hours before, he wasn’t surprised. Since I had never entertained the idea myself until a day prior, obviously I hadn’t discussed the possibility with our children and I asked him why he told me the purchase was predictable. He said that in the last year when I’ve periodically rented a car, it was obvious to him how much more relaxed and happy I was.

What was obvious to him took a lot of soul searching for me!

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

frugal strategies, menu plans

Here is this week’s menu plan – I’ve only included breakfast meals if they are different than my standard option of hot cooked cereal or eggs.

Sun – lunch – deli sandwiches; dinner – sweet potato chili (doubled)

Mon – b – eggs; l -bean and rice bowls with avocado sauce (triple rice to serve with tomorrow’s dinner and morning rice on Thurs.); d – red lentil dal with kasha

Tuesday – b – baked oatmeal; l – sweet potato chili ; d – chicken a la king with rice

Wednesday: b – morning rice (with sunflower seeds and raisins); l – eggs and salad ; d – chicken tamale pie

Thursday – b – pancakes; l – chickpea pot pie (doubled); d – CORN (clean out refrigerator night)

Friday – l – chickpea pot pie

I made homemade cold cuts for Shabbos using marinated chicken breasts, but they were removed from the oven before they were completely cooked through to the center. So there was about half of it that I didn’t serve on Shabbos; my kids were very happy to have this left over! Yesterday we cooked up the chicken that was left, then sliced it  up and made sandwiches with leftover challah for Sunday lunch – voila, deli sandwiches!

I started my week by soaking and then cooking a pot of red beans – it takes almost the same amount of time and effort to cook a little as to cook a lot.  I used that for Sunday night dinner (I doubled that recipe so that I would have enough to serve for lunch on Tuesday), and will use the rest for the bean and rice bowls for Monday lunch.

I found a great deal at a supermarket just a couple of weeks ago – vacuum wrapped avocado puree. I love avocados but the price is never low, even when they’re in season, which they aren’t right now. The price per kg of avocados is currently about 16 shekels a kilo; a vacuum pack of 1 lb (approximately half a kilo) of mashed avocado is 5 shekels – that comes out to 10 shekels a kilo, but it doesn’t include the weight of the pit or peels, so the price is closer to half the price of fresh avocados or less.  it’s not only cheaper but more convenient than the fresh avocados, and I’ll defrost a package of this for the avocado sauce that will top the rice bowls.

The kids enjoy making pancakes themselves, and I’ve scheduled it for Thursday because that’s a day that I’m home all day so I’m more relaxed. They make a regular batch for themselves and a coconut flour (gluten free) batch for Yirmi.

The chickpea pot pie made it onto this week’s menu after I inventoried my freezer and saw that I had a container of seasoned cooked chickpeas, and another of vegetable pot pie filling. Once both containers are defrosted, I’ll combine the two mixtures, make a mashed potato topping and bake it.

I didn’t schedule dinner for Thursday night since experience has shown that there’s usually something left from the week and I try to use what I have and leave the fridge space clear for my Shabbos cooking the next day.

I’ve put on my optional list – if I have the energy and time and desire that all coincide at the same time and that’s very much not a given :): zucchini muffins, sweet potato muffins, cornbread muffins (gluten free – I use coconut flour). I’d like to make a large batch so I can put a bunch of them in the freezer. I don’t do much baking and once I’m doing it, I’d like to maximize my efforts.

Avivah