Category Archives: frugal strategies

Too Good to be Healthy Peanut Butter Cups

frugal strategies, nutrition, recipes, ,

The inspiration for these incredibly yummy and good for you treats came from the plastic tray that the all natural falafel patties I bought came in.  I rarely buy processed foods, even natural processed foods, so these trays were an unusual bonus!  The tray had eight round molded spaces where each patty was and looked so nice that I started thinking about what I could use them for.  A couple of days later I had this burst of inspiration!  The final result tasted decadent and looked beautiful, since the molding on the bottom gave it the look of fancy chocolates (I served mine upside down so that the molding was on top).  They looked so good I was tempted to take a picture to show you, but of course I didn’t because that would have meant figuring out how to post them. 🙄

If you don’t have any creative molds that you rescued from recycling :), don’t despair!  You can use a pan or other flat container and cut them into bars, or you can pour them into metallic mini muffin cups.  They’ll taste good either way.

Too Good to Be Healthy Peanut Butter Cups

Chocolate layer: (some of you will recognize this as my healthy chocolate recipe)

  • 1/2 c. cocoa powder
  • 1/4 c. coconut oil
  • 1 t. vanilla
  • 1/8 – 1/4 c. honey

Melt the coconut oil and stir the other ingredients in; mix until smooth.  Pour the chocolate into the bottom of the pan or fill the molds with a thin layer, leaving half of the chocolate for the topping.  Let cool while you prepare the peanut butter filling.  (The chocolate will have the taste of semi sweet dark chocolate, not milk chocolate. I experimented using coconut milk to see if I could make it more similar to milk chocolate, but wasn’t satisfied with the consistency.)

filling:

  • 3/4 c. creamy peanut butter (I use organic, with only sea salt added)
  • 2 T. honey
  • 1 t. vanilla
  • 1/4 c. coconut oil
  • 1/3 c. ground nuts (I used pecan meal)

Melt the coconut oil, stir in honey, vanilla, and then the peanut butter.  When smooth, stir in the ground nuts.  Spread the peanut butter filling on top of the chocolate, whether it’s in a mold or a pan.  Finally, take the remaining chocolate mixture (if it’s started to solidify, heat it gently for a couple of minutes until it’s liquidy and easy to pour) and pour it on top of the peanut butter layer, smoothing it so that the top is even. Refrigerate or freeze.

Healthy chocolates are super expensive, and these are a fraction of the price!  Not only that, they’re packed with healthy fats and are very satisfying; two make a nice dessert that you don’t have to feel guilty about.  And they are so good you can serve them to your junk food loving friends, too!

(This post is part of Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays,  Pennywise Platter Thursdays and Fight Back Fridays.)

Avivah

Saving money on deodorant

frugal strategies, recipes, ,

For years, the idea of anti-perspirant has bugged me.  It’s always seemed counter intuitive to health to keep perspiration from being released (one way the body releases toxins).  And I’ve also always wondered about if there’s a connection between breast cancer and anti-perspirant, since the lymph nodes are right under the armpit and if they get blocked up, it makes sense that a person will get sick.

Well, regardless of my mental cogitating on all of this, I like looking and smelling socially acceptable and this wasn’t something I was going to give up.   I had tried a crystal but it didn’t work at all, and the healthy deodorant alternative in the store was mucho money and I didn’t want to spend that without knowing it would work really well.

But about a year ago in the winter, I decided it was a good time for an experiment in this area, since if it wasn’t working no one but me would know. 🙂 I started applying a sprinkle of baking soda in place of deodorant, and I found that it worked great!  I stayed fresher than I ever did with deodorant!  Because I prefer to try things for a while before sharing them to make sure they really work, I didn’t want to post about it here until I had gone through all the seasons.  So it’s been over a year now and I can say with confidence it’s worked great though all kinds of weather, hot and cold.

However, there were two downsides to my solution.  One – it was slightly messy, since a sprinkling of baking soda would fall on my bathroom counter. That’s easily enough taken care of by a daily wipe down, but still it was a down side.  And it is kind of wasteful.   Two – my teenagers had no interest in trying my solution, even though they tend to be open to my ideas.

So, I decided it was time to find a solution that would work for them, and we did!  I saved a few empty deodorant containers, and made an effective, healthy, and inexpensive alternative to deodorant.  And it took all of five minutes to make a few bars worth. (The recipe below will make one or two bars, depending on the size you make it.)

Homemade Deodorant

  • 1/4 c. baking soda
  • 1/4 c. cornstarch
  • 2 T. coconut oil (expeller pressed)
  • optional – ten drops of essential oil

Melt the coconut oil in a small pot.  Stir in the baking soda and cornstarch until smooth.  If you want to add a scent to it, add ten drops of essential oil now.  I didn’t, because all I had on hand was tea tree oil and my kids hate the smell of it.

You’re going to have a soft white paste.  Take out the empty deodorant containers, and turn them so the little thing in the middle is down as low as it can go.  Then fill the containers, and let them sit on the counter until they harden.  Once it’s firm, use like any regular anti-perspirant – it will look just like what you buy in the stores, and my kids have said it works great and are happy to use it.

If you don’t have an empty deodorant container and don’t feel like waiting to have one to try this, find a couple of empty toilet paper tubes.  It seems to me that if you stand the empty tube on top of a wax paper or pan and then pour the mixture in, you can let it harden in place.  Then once it’s firm you can cut down the side that has the paper tube sticking up, leaving enough over so that you can fold the sides of it down over the bottom like you would wrap a present.  Then turn it right side up and just push it up from the bottom as you want to use it.

How does this work?  Baking soda is known to be an absorber of smell, and the cornstarch wicks away moisture.  I’m sure the coconut oil is beneficial as an antibacterial factor as well.  If you add the essential oils, it mostly just makes it smell nice.

The cost for this is very, very low.  I pay under .50 lb for baking soda (.06 for 1/4 cup), and around a dollar for a cup of expeller pressed coconut oil (.13 cents for 2 T.).  I haven’t bought corn starch in ages so I have no idea how much I paid, but it wasn’t a lot.  So for under .25 cents, I’ve been able to make a generous sized deodorant that works great, without any of the negative side effects!

(This post is part of Fight Back Fridays and Frugal Fridays.)

Avivah

Making homemade buckwheat noodles (gluten free)

frugal strategies, nutrition, recipes, , ,

I’ve had this noodle recipe in my file for months, waiting to make it, and I finally got around to it this week!  Flours and grains need to be soaked to neutralize the phytic acid, but when you buy whole grain pasta at the store, it generally hasn’t been soaked or sprouted.  That means that even though you think you’re buying something really good for you, your body isn’t able to absorb most of the additional nutrients. So the health benefit isn’t very substantial.

Until now, my solution has been to cut our consumption of store bought whole grain pasta so that having it is a rare occasion; I treat it as a semi-junk food.  However, by making it myself I can soak the flour so that the phytic acid issue is no longer a concern.  So these noodles really are good for you!

Homemade Buckwheat Noodles (gluten free)

  • 2 c. buckwheat flour
  • 1/2 – 2/3 c. water
  • 1/2 T. raw apple cider vinegar (we use Bragg’s)

Mix the water and apple cider vinegar together, and then stir together with the flour.  It’s going to seem like you don’t have enough water when you add a 1/2 cup; add some more a little bit at a time since you don’t want it to become too sticky to work with.  You’ll need to work it with your hands for a few minutes until the moisture is all worked through the flour.  Let this sit overnight (this step is the one that reduces the phytic acid, so don’t skip it.)

When you’re ready to roll it out, sprinkle some kind of flour (gluten free, if that’s a concern for you) on the work surface, then a little on top of the dough.  Roll out the dough to be about 1/8″ thick.  Using a sharp knife, cut the noodles into thin slices (you can be creative with shapes if you like).  Then add them to a pot of salted boiling water and let cook for several minutes.  How long you cook them will depend on the thickness of the dough and the size of your noodles.  You’ll know they’re done when they are tender but still a little chewy.

You can substitute wheat flour if you want to make regular noodles.  Experiment with different kinds of flour, using this same basic recipe, and see what kind of combinations you can come up with!  Be sure to soak it overnight, though.  It would be a shame to spend the time making these and not end up with the good nutrition that your time warrants.  I’m planning to try dehydrating some next time we make them so I can make these in advance and then store them like store bought pasta.

I made four times this amount for our family for dinner, so I used about two pounds of buckwheat flour.  Generally I buy buckwheat and grind it myself but I got some buckwheat flour at a super cheap price, less than buying it whole (I paid .99 for the 2 lb. box; generally I pay about 1.60 lb).   This made a very abundant amount of noodles for dinner tonight, that we served together with a meat sauce (slight change in menu), carrot fries, lacto fermented green beans and ginger carrots.

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

frugal strategies, menu plans

Sorry that the menu plan is late this week – I was feeling totally uninspired on Saturday night and then again Sunday night when I sat down to write it. But I know when I don’t make a menu plan for the week, we end up having unnecessary pressure around mealtimes, meals don’t get served on time, and the food isn’t as nice as when I plan it in advance.  Somehow after coming home from doing my monthly shopping today it seemed much easier!

Shabbos – d – challah, chicken soup, meatballs and sauce, mashed potatoes, vegetable kugel, power bars, chocolate chip cookie bars; l – cholent, roast turkey, kishke, green bean mango salad, tomato olive salad, fresh coconut, dried fruit, nuts, power bars

Sunday – breakfast – pizza; l – chicken vegetable soup; d – beef stew, salads

Monday – b – banana bread; l – out doing monthly shopping, had snacks; d – falafel patties, carrot sticks, sour cream, milk

Tuesday – b – blueberry muffins (w/ coconut flour); l – cheesy cauliflower soup; d – vegetarian meatloaf, carrot fries

Wednesday- b – pecan burgers, eggs; l – vegetable lentil soup; d – baked fish, yams, salad

Thursday – b – raisin scones; l – leftovers; d – homemade buckwheat noodles, sauce, cottage cheese

Friday – b – quinoa pudding

In order to prepare for today’s shopping trip, I defrosted and then dehydrated all of the frozen vegetables in my full size freezer yesterday (except for the whole green beans).  I always marvel at how small the quantities look once they’re dehydrated!  It’s a good thing that last week I took out all the prepared food I had frozen and used them, as well as freeing up the space from the vegetables and some soft cheeses, since today I found a great buy on berries, and was able to buy 20 packages of blueberries (10 oz each) and eight packages of mixed berries (3 lb each).  Oh, and six or eight pounds of frozen sliced peaches.  And 12 lb of whiting fillets.  🙂  It was good I had room for them – last month I didn’t take the precautions before I went shopping and bought way more than I had room to store.  Fortunately it was freezing outside so I was able to use my outdoor ‘stair pantry’ to keep things cold.

I found a new source to order my bulk food that I’m very happy about, since it’s making my shopping even less expensive!  As I’ve said before, don’t be shy to ask store managers to work with you; just because they have never done it before for anyone else doesn’t mean they won’t do it for you!  This is the second store that has gladly tacked my bulk order on top of theirs and put it to the side for me when it comes in.

So I bought another 25 lb of pecan meal, 30 lb of quinoa, and 25 lb of raisins – I’ve been using lots more nut and coconut flours for baking and have significantly cut down on oats and grains.  Though grain flours tend to be cheap and nuts tend to be expensive, buying nuts/nut meals in bulk has made using them often workable within my budget – I pay between 1/2 – 1/4 of what the exact same items cost in the same store when sold in small packages.  I also have been using raisins and dates to decrease the amount of sucanat or honey I use in baked goods.   Quinoa is officially a seed and I think it’s more digestible than other grains, and that’s why I got more of that rather than a less expensive grain.  But I’m not cutting out grains altogether since they are a frugal cook’s friend. 🙂

In addition to that, I got the usual 50 lb potatoes, a case of eggs (30 dozen), 80 lb yams (instead of  my usual 40 – the baby loves them and eats our supply down quickly!); 50 lb onions, 27 lb carrots (peeled and packaged as carrot sticks- they were outrageously cheap; I should have gotten more but didn’t realize how few pounds were in each case until I got home), 10 gallons of raw milk (I knew I wouldn’t be able to find fridge space for more), 12 lb honey, and a bunch of canned goods.  And all the other miscellany that aren’t worth mentioning.  So I’m pretty well set for the coming month, except for the meat/poultry and cheese, which I’ll buy tomorrow, and vegetables, which I’ll shop for again in another couple of weeks.  Nice to have it mostly out of the way and done for a while – who wants to be spending time in the store every few days if you don’t have to?!

Last month I bought 25 lb of raw sunflower seeds, and yesterday I finally took some out to soak overnight; they’re in the dehydrator right now and will be ready by morning.  Sunflower seeds are the least expensive of the nuts/seeds, and they are a nice addition to various dishes, like salads and grainless granolas.

Avivah

Free group violin lessons

frugal strategies, homeschooling

Music lessons are so pricey that I mentally categorize them as  ‘nice but luxury’, and as such, aren’t in my budget.  But H-shem has been very good to us and provided the means for three children to take piano and now another two to experience violin!

Today I took my ds3 and ds7 to a group violin lesson for children ages 4 – 7.  The teacher gives private lessons but very generously is providing this as a free service.  I thought ds7 would especially appreciate the opportunity, but took ds3 (he’ll be four in three months) along after speaking to a friend who has several kids who have played string instruments to get her opinion about if that was too young.

Violins come in lots of sizes, some very tiny, so they can be appropriately sized for young children.  I’m not a parent who is driven to get my kids to perform at a young age in any way, but this seemed like a fun opportunity and I was glad to access this for them.  We joined a number of children and their parents today at the home of the very nice teacher, who lives locally. In the 45 minute lesson, they were fitted with the right size violin (ds3 – 1/10, ds7 – 1/4), learned the names of all the parts, how to hold it at rest, how to hold it to play, how to take a bow, the names of the four notes, and learned two short and simple songs.  It was a lot!

Ds3 was tired (today it took place in the early afternoon, when he usually is napping) and I’m not going to predict if he’ll maintain ongoing interest, but I’ll keep taking him as long as he’s interested.  Ds7 is ready for something like this and I think it will be a great opportunity for him especially.

The teacher would like to start with a large number of children, knowing that many will lose interest and drop out within a short time. That way, she’ll be left with enough children who are interested to continue the group.  I received an email from her after the lesson saying that since a couple of people who had reserved spots didn’t come, she has space for two more kids.  I wanted to share this with those of you in my area who might be interested.

Before you email me for info, here are the conditions to participate: you have to come promptly on time – 5 pm on Sunday. You need to come every week; if you can’t make it, you need to notify her in advance.  You can miss one lesson, but if you miss more than that, you’ll need to pay her to give your child a private lesson so he can be at the same level at the rest of the class.  An adult needs to stay with the child during the lesson, and it needs to be the same parent every week (ie no switching off).  You have to either buy or rent an instrument for your child to use (rental price is $20 a month).  The group is geared for kids ages 4 – 7 (my ds7 is the oldest).  If after reading all of that you’re interested, either email me at the address above shown in the ‘Contact Me’ section or use my personal email address if you already have it, and I’ll send you the contact information so you can be in touch with the teacher directly.

People have sometimes expressed to me the feeling that I have some kind of ‘luck’ in finding great prices or opportunities, but good things are waiting for every one of us every day; the challenge is in recognizing them and taking action!

Avivah

Saving scraps for vegetable broth

frugal strategies,

>>hi avivah! do you save vegetable scraps- peels, etc- for making soup stock? why or why not? thanks!<<

Since I’m a long term frugalista, I suppose I should tell you that not only do I make stock with vegetable scraps, but so should you!  Actually, this has never been something that I’ve chosen to do.  I have several reasons.

Firstly,  I prefer to use bone broths as my stock of choice for flavor and nutritional value.  I’ve cultivated a free source of bones for broth making, so bone broths literally cost me nothing to make, plus I get the meat from the bones to use in other dishes and the fat that I skim from the top to cook with as a nice side benefit.

There’s also a limit to how much broth I can make and use in the course of a week – I generally make between 1 – 2 pots of broth each week in a sixteen quart pot (generally two in the winter, one in the summer).  So let’s say each pot amounts to about ten or twelve quarts.  That’s between 40-96 cups of broth a week, which is a lot, even for a family of eleven!  I like that bone broths have a protein sparing effect and can be used in inexpensive vegetarian dishes to significantly increase the nutrient value of a dish.  I think they taste amazing, too! (We recently sent several meals to neighbors/friends, and they kept commenting on how delicious the soups were – the only secret was that I use broth instead of water. 🙂 )  So if I have to choose between vegetable broths or bone broths, bone broths are hands down more worthwhile in every way for me.

Next, what kind of vegetables are you getting the scraps from and why?  If the veggies are in good condition, then I don’t peel them so there aren’t many scraps; I include them with the peels in the dish I’m making.  I don’t like to sound finicky or spoiled, because I’m really not, but if the peels are from produce that is starting to spoil, then I have no desire to eat them in any form.  You might wonder about  the tops or bottoms of different vegetables that are cut off, but since  I would only use vegetable scraps if they had been washed and cleaned as well as any of the other vegetables I eat, I’m not willing to do the extra work necessary.  Call me lazy, but washing onion onion skins, beet peels, potato peels, rutabaga peels, etc isn’t where I want to spend my time.  And I’d rather save my onion bottoms to plant in the spring than put them into my stock pot.

Also, I don’t generally buy organic produce, except when I can buy it at a competitive price.  So if the vegetable is fresh and the peel is clean, but I’m still choosing to peel them, it’s often because it’s my little effort in reducing some of the pesticide consumption for our family, since the pesticides generally are most highly concentrated in the outer layers.  I acknowledge that it would be better if all my produce were organic but it’s not in the budget right now, and concentrating those pesticides further by making stock with the scraps doesn’t bring me closer to my goal of better health for my family.

However, that doesn’t mean that my vegetable scraps go to waste!  I compost a huge percentage of our vegetable scraps so they end up benefiting us by boosting our soil quality.  I don’t use pesticides when I garden, and strong soil health is very important in preventing insect infestations and having high quality vegetables.  We don’t buy organic fertilizers or compost; our compost all comes from our kitchen food scraps!  So they don’t go to waste and end up saving us money in a different way.

For those who enjoy transforming their vegetable scraps into broth, terrific!  So much of frugality is personal preference; there are things that I do that would be out of someone else’s comfort zone, and things they do that are outside of mine.  The main thing is to find ways that we can each work within our budgets in a way that is satisfying and productive.

Avivah

Making freezer meals for a gift

frugal strategies, miscellaneous

Tomorrow is my mother’s sixtieth birthday, and I was thinking that a significant birthday like this deserves more than a birthday dinner (what we usually do).  The problem with wanting so much to do something special is then when you can’t think of something, you feel guilty and end up doing nothing!

I decided not to make a big deal out of this in my mind, knowing that my mother is a person who appreciates everything and won’t be expecting anything.  She already was touched when dd13 called to ask if she would come for Shabbos (and it’s not like this is a rare invitation).  Like me, my mother isn’t so into ‘stuff’, and I can’t think of anything she really wants or needs that will be meaningful.  I know she’ll love homemade cards from the kids and I’m going to encourage them to make a poem or write something heartfelt on their cards.  And we have some special dishes and her favorite dessert planned for Shabbos. 🙂   I’m planning to give her a homemade ‘coupon’ to take her out to dinner (just the two of us) when it’s convenient for her.  She loves spending time with the kids but often says how much she appreciates when it’s quiet enough to have time to talk to me without interruptions, so I know this is something that will mean a lot for her.

Something else we’re doing is making her homemade dinners that are portioned in one person containers that she can put in her freezer and take out at her convenience. Like many others who don’t have anyone else to cook for still at home, she doesn’t take the time to make herself the kind of meals she really appreciates; it seems like too much effort for one person.  So we’re making her pasta and meatballs with green beans, egg rolls, quinoa with stir fried veggies, and maybe a couple of other dishes – I’m thinking about roasted chicken with potatoes and steamed vegetables.  I don’t want to make more than she’ll have room for in her freezer, so I’m trying to be moderate!

This is something I hope she’ll appreciate, not just when we give it to her, but every time she comes home at the end of a long day and can pull something delicious and nutritious out of her freezer and enjoy home cooked meal.  A gift like this for my mother is not just a gift of food, but a gift of time, love, and health.  Time, because it gives her more time in her life to relax or do other things; love, because she’ll feel nurtured and cared about not only when we give it to her but every time she takes one out of the freezer; health, because it’s so much better than the typical frozen food a person can pick up in the store (even the health food store).

Making these really just means buying the ingredients, a few appropriate containers, and taking the time to do it.  I think there are people in a variety of life situations who would appreciate a gift like this, don’t you?

Avivah

A menorah purchase for next year

frugal strategies

Yesterday I stopped in at Target and Walmart to check out their post winter season sales – usually this week is the week that a lot of things go on clearance.  I wouldn’t go out of my way to do this (since staying out of stores if you don’t need something is a better strategy for saving money than being tempted by sales), but they were both on my way home from where I was, I needed to buy a new garbage can for the kitchen, I  had a gift card for Target, and so it seemed like a good time!

I was happy to find an adorable hand painted metal menorah – it’s a Noah’s ark with four  kinds of animals, two of each animal, each on a spring.  It looks exactly like this and is so cute!  And it was marked down 75%.  But there was no price on it.  When I took it to the checkout, the cashier scanned it and told me it was $30.  I said it was marked 75% off and she said that was the reduced price.  At times like these you can’t help but wonder if people have lost their ability to think.  It would have to be $120 retail to be reduced to $30, which clearly was way beyond its value.  But all I said was that I thought $30 matched its retail value and was probably the original price, so she took it to the  manager to get it marked with the reduced price.

She came back and told me it was 8.95, which was fine with me in terms of it being a good buy.  But because I thought it was supposed to be 75% off, I asked to clarify how they determined the price, and she told me that the price she told me was 75% off the original price.  I said that I believed 7.50 was seventy-five percent of thirty.  She insisted that they used a calculator to figure out the price.  I pleasantly told her again that it was 7.50.  She clearly wasn’t as confident of her math skills as I was of mine (for good reason :D), so she called the manager over and explained to him that I thought the price wasn’t figured out right.  It took him a minute to say out loud, ‘Half of thirty is fifteen, half of fifteen is 7.50 – yea, she’s right.”  I know Walmart isn’t paying people to think independently, but it’s still somewhat disturbing that two adults couldn’t work this out together just by thinking, let alone not being able to do it with the help of a calculator.

I got this since all of our kids light menorahs from the age of five and up, so I’m thinking ahead about ds3.  Maybe we’ll give it to him next year, even though he’ll only be four.  When we give a menorah, it’s the first gift we give on the first night to that child, so they can use it right away.  I showed it to all the older kids, who thought it was adorable.  It’s part of the fun for everyone that they each get their own unique menorah to light, and they all enjoy seeing the variety of menorahs when we unpack them each year.  Now they’ll get to anticipate their younger brother’s excitement next year when we give this to him.

This is the third menorah that I bought at the end of the season in the past three years for our kids – it’s an affordable way to get each child something much nicer than a cheap tin menorah!  By the way, this menorah retails online for $45 – 50, so this was really an amazing buy!

Avivah

Seeds vs. seedlings

frugal strategies, gardening,

>>have you ever figured out if it is better to plant (mostly i am talking about vegetables) from seeds or from seedlings? i am trying to decide if it pays to buy plants, or if it is a needless waste of money. i don’t exactly have a green thumb, in case that impacts your answer. also, what do you think about planting fruit trees? is it frugal?<<

I got my seed catalog a few weeks ago and have been enjoying poring over it and deciding what to plant for the coming spring/summer.  Before beginning to garden, I never would have understood the enjoyment to be found in looking through a seed catalog!

Seeds are always the most frugal; you can buy 2 -3 packets of open pollinated tomato seeds that will grow hundreds of plants for what you’ll pay for one tomato start.   When you buy a seedling, you’re paying for the foresight that the nursery has shown in starting the seeds indoors so you can get a jump on the planting season.

How much you’ll benefit from using seedlings or seeds will depend on the length of your planting season.  If you have a shorter season, then you’ll want to transplant your seedlings to maximize your time.  If you live in a warmer climate, then sometimes you aren’t gaining more than two weeks, since the seeds planted in the ground once it’s warm generally take off really fast.

But you can start your own seeds indoors and then have your own seedlings to transplant at a fraction of the cost – this is the direction I’d go in, if cost is an issue.  They’ll need warmth, moisture, and light after the seeds germinate.  Most seeds really aren’t a big deal to start yourself.  I’ll probably start some seeds indoors again this year, even though it didn’t make a huge difference to me in getting a start on my garden last year.  I’m going to try a different method this year that I think will be more effective.

Another potential concern is regarding the quality of the seedlings you buy from the big box stores, which is low.  They are poorly tended, low quality hybrids, and often don’t transplant well.  They were responsible in large part for spreading the tomato blight this past year.  So even if you decide to go the route of buying them, realize that while you’re paying much more, you’re not necessarily getting much more.  If you’re going to buy them, look for transplants from reputable nurseries.

Also, as far as seeds go, keep in mind that you often can save the seeds of the vegetables you eat and grow those.  And if you save the seeds of your open pollinated plants from year to year, you’ll never need to spend anything on seeds again.  That means buying any kind of open pollinated seed can be a one time purchase – super frugal!

As far as fruit trees, I don’t see them as frugal in the short term.  It will take years until you have fruit you can harvest (taking into account halachic concerns), and this is affecting my decisions about this.  I’d been planning to buy several young fruit trees to plant in my side yard this spring, and am now thinking I’d probably be better off converting the area to grow vegetables.  But there is the long term satisfaction in being able to grow your own fruit, and eventually it becomes frugal once you’re past the preliminary years.  So we’ll probably go with the fruit trees even if something else would be more efficient in the short term.

Avivah

Free accupuncture

frugal strategies, nutrition

Today was a busy day, a beautiful day of good things: a sleepover for my children with friends, a funeral, an accupuncture session, and then a skating party for a couple of the boys to attend.

If I can squeeze it in this week, I want to write a separate post about the funeral, which was inspiring and very special.  But for now, I’m going to share about the accupuncture treatment I enjoyed.  Because my dh takes our vehicle on Sundays to work, my mom generously offered to give me a ride to the funeral service, and then right after we went to have some accupuncture work done.

I had the pleasure of meeting Julie, the accupuncturist, two or three years ago.  She’s shifting her practice to community accupuncture, a process that allows her to treat several women simultaneously, and I got a message from her that she’s offering complimentary sessions for the next couple of Sundays between 2 – 5 pm.  I’m sharing the link with info because this is a wonderful opportunity to experience accupuncture by an experienced practitioner for no cost.  (Her prices are incredibly affordable even after these complimentary sessions.)  You don’t have to make an appointment; if you live in this area and are interested, just check out the link for the address and show up!

Accupuncture is a method of healing that uses tiny needles to stimulate pressure points in the body and thereby releases blocked energy.  You don’t have to undress; you sit in a comfortable recliner while the needles are inserted into spots on your arms, lower legs, and head.  (I had tights on today so I didn’t have the full benefit of having all my pressure points stimulated, but next time I’ll be sure to wear knee highs that can easily be rolled down.)    This takes just a few minutes, and then you relax and get quiet inside yourself while you wait for the energy flow to start moving around.  This was easy to do while listening to the beautiful and relaxing music playing, the only light was coming in through the windows, and it was very peaceful.

At first I wasn’t sure what I was waiting to feel, so I asked her.  She said it would feel like your body was humming or gently vibrating, and that it takes a few minutes to start feeling it.  Once I started feeling it, it was like a gentle tingling or warmth – an inner humming is probably the best description.  I asked how long it would take, and she said that I would tell her when my body was ready.  Not knowing what that meant, I again asked and she said that usually your body ‘wakes up’.   This is hard to explain but once you do it, it’s easy to understand.  The humming kind of stopped at some point and instead of feeling deeply relaxed, I started to feel like getting up and going home.

If you’re wondering about the set up, there are four recliners in the room.  Because of the angle you lie down at, the fact that you close your eyes when you are having your session, and the way the recliners are set up, you aren’t sitting around staring at anyone.  It’s very comfortable.

My mother and I both found this very relaxing and renewing, and plan to go back together the next couple of weeks!

Avivah