Category Archives: frugal strategies

Preparing for flu season

frugal strategies, nutrition

Last week a couple of people asked me what I’m doing to prepare for the upcoming flu season, particularly regarding swine flu.  The first thing I told them is, I’m absolutely not getting a shot for it!

I try to operate from a proactive and holistic perspective, so while shots (particularly these for the swine flu, which are highly experimental and untested – and in the last wave of swine flu, more people died from the shot than the flu) aren’t anything I would recommend for anyone, there are a few things that I’m planning to do.  Most of these are things to prepare for any kind of winter sickness, not just the flu.

Firstly, I’d like to can up a bunch of chicken broth so I can quickly pull some off the shelf and have a sniffly child eating it within a few minutes.

Next, I just noticed that I have almost no vitamin C powder left.  I can’t believe that it’s all finished since I bought four pounds less than a year ago.  But I’ll order another 2.2 pounds of sodium ascorbate from Bronson Lab.   (Edited to add that I switched to ordering from iherb.)

Next, I’m going to order some dried elderberries so I can make elderberry syrup.  Elderberry is the thing to have for the flu – it’s a key ingredient in preparations like Sambucol.  (The Latin name of elderberry is Sambucus nigra – you see where Sambucol gets its name, right?)  I tried to order some a few months ago but they were sold out at the place I get my herbs, so I’ll get some with my next order.

Next, I’m going to make an echinacea glycerite.  Echinacea is an infection fighter and a natural antibiotic.  I want to make a glycerite versus a tincture since a tincture uses alcohol, while a glycerite uses glycerine; the alcohol tincture isn’t as appealing for kids as the sweet glycerites.  (This isn’t for the flu, because of the cytokine storm issue.)

I also plan to buy kosher glycerin capsules and a capping tool so I can fill my own capsules.  There are several powdered spices that I buy in the food section in a large container, knowing that they are helpful medicinally, too.  Some of these include: ginger, cinnamon, tumeric, and garlic.  It’s not practical to eat a large amount of them, but if I can put them into capsules, it would be easy to give a child feeling queasy, for example, a ginger pill.

We already have a stock of vitamin D, which is effective in small amounts as a flu preventative, and in extremely high amounts, is a curative.  We aren’t taking it daily at this point.  We got this specifically with swine flu in mind.

There’s a homeopathic remedy called oscillococcinum for the flu – the local health food store didn’t have any when I checked in the spring, but it looks like I can order it online.  Another item I’d like to have on hand.

Something I did for my personal health today was to start a lobelia glycerite and a mullein glycerite brewing.  Last winter I shared how some doses of mullein and lobelia tea ended my asthma symptoms.  But since the camping trip a week ago, they suddenly resurfaced and I’m having a hard time breathing throughout the day and particularly at night.  Hopefully this will help.

Since most people who die of the flu actually die of dehydration, I have several recipes in my notebook for homemade rehydration formulas.  This came in handy a few weeks ago when dd8 was playing all Shabbos long but not drinking much, and suddenly began vomiting repeatedly.  She couldn’t keep any liquid down, but the rehydration formula was great and I was very glad I had it since it saved us a trip to the emergency room.

A suggestion in an entirely different direction is to stay out of public areas as much as possible.  Another suggestion along these lines is to have enough basic food supplies on hand so that if you get sick, you won’t need to run to the store.

As I wrote last year on the topic of boosting immune function for kids, try to keep white sugar and processed foods out of your diets as much as possible, since they bring down your immunity.  While eating a good diet doesn’t guarantee an absence of illness, the better your diet is, the healthier you’ll be.

Avivah

Shopping and gas costs

food preservation, frugal strategies

>>With the price of gas being what it is, is it really worth making a 2-3 hour trip to shop really worth it? >>

Well, let’s look at the numbers.   If I get 13 miles to the gallon, then I need 15 gallons for the entire day (it’s 100 miles in each direction).  With gas now at about 2.50 a gallon, it works out to $37.50.  So I need to save at least that amount before I start to benefit.  I gave the example of having saved over $110 when I bought three bags of wheat.  I don’t buy wheat every month (can’t eat nearly that much in a month!), but everything I buy is significantly less than it would be if I bought locally, not on sale.  (That’s not to say that everything is much cheaper, but that the things I buy are much cheaper.) I started buying 5 gallon buckets of coconut oil when I do my big shopping (it’s an item the store doesn’t carry but specially orders for me) – the shipping that I used to pay for one bucket was about $40.  And of course, I get much, much more than just one item – we have a 12 passenger van, and I remove one bench seat before I go.  The van is generally packed full when I get back – that’s why it takes me part of the following day to get everything unpacked and organized!

I wonder how much people spend on their gas costs for their small trips every couple of days to the store?  Most people don’t think about there even being costs associated with it, but whether they think about it or not, they’re still spending that money on gas and shopping.  I think that’s it’s highly likely that most women spend just as much as I do on gas each month with shorter but more numerous shopping trips – but spend a lot more time in the stores than I do.

However, it’s in large part due to the gas costs (and time needed) that my shopping trips have become more and more spread out.  At this point, I go shopping about every 7 weeks instead of every four, and supplement in between the big trips with small local trips every couple of weeks.  So the gas costs are really much less significant than it seems even from the number I gave.

>>I have an Amish area about 2.5 hours away but that takes a day away from regular life (school, hanging out, etc) and everyone’s tushies get tired from being in the car for that long (even with our audio books and torah tapes).<<

 I don’t see it as taking a day from regular life as much as it being a day of regular life.  I try to do some kind of trip on that day, when I can – like going to a living history museum, a chocolate factory, potato chip factory, dairy.  It doesn’t always work out but the kids enjoy going with me anyway.  I can’t say exactly what they enjoy about it – a friend came with me once and I know it seemed boring to her from a kid’s perspective.  One thing the older kids said they like is having a long block of time to shmooze with me, which is why I don’t generally agree to have anyone come with me.  I generally buy some kind of treat for everyone, in addition to buying something for lunch and then (weather permitting) we have a mini picnic.  It’s generally pretty simple but the kids enjoy it. 

>>In buying bulk, do you worry about bug infestation and how do you store everything?<

Bulk grains are put into the freezer for 24 hours, sometimes more.  When it’s the winter time, this is greatly simplified by storing them on the stairs leading from my basement to outside that are covered by storm doors – that freezes them very quickly.   If there are any insects in it, they will be killed by this.  In the summer I find this much harder to do – I only have one freezer and generally need the space for perishable foods.  But whether the grains are frozen first or not, I transfer them from the bags they came in to food grade plastic buckets (most are five gallon, but the rectangular ones I prefer are a bit smaller).  They seal tightly and can be stacked somewhere in the corner of your laundry room or basement.  It doesn’t take up much space. 

Avivah

Buying in bulk through supermarkets

frugal strategies, ,

>>about your bulk food distributor- do you have one source that will get you what you need, or do you need a different person for each product or store type? do you go through the local stores, or do you just go over their heads? the stores here don’t seem too eager to help someone not shop by them- even if i offer to pay them for their help… but if that’s what you do, then i will keep plugging away here.<<

I just finished making my bulk order today, so now’s a good time to answer this!  Buying in bulk is a great way to save money since generally the price per unit will be lower if you’re buying a large amount (not always, though, so remember to check the unit price to be sure it’s worth your time).  I’ve gotten more adventuresome over time, so here’s a bit of my progression and what’s worked for me; maybe one of the ideas will work for you.

To start with, I asked my local health food store if they had bulk amounts.  They did, and routinely offered a ten percent discount if you buy it in bulk.  That’s nice, but wasn’t very impressive.  But I stuck with that for years since I wasn’t buying the large amounts I buy now.

I  used to shop once a week, so buying in bulk wasn’t very important to me (actually, I felt it was a liability at the time since I didn’t want to find room to store that amount of food – but my priorities have changed since then).  But 3.5 years ago when I started to grind my own wheat for health reasons, I wanted to find another source since the local health food store was selling regular white winter wheat for over a dollar a pound (after the discount) and it was more expensive in that case to grind my own wheat than to buy whole wheat flour.

Then I started looking to buy directly from the wholesalers that the health food stores were buying from.  I asked the local health food store who their supplier was and did some online searching for other bulk food distributors.  Most bulk suppliers won’t sell directly to individuals, but some will.  I found one three hours away that sold to stores and individuals and started buying from them.

I didn’t go often at all – I didn’t need many items, and got enough of those to last me at about 3 months so I wouldn’t have to make the trip too frequently.  At that time a 50 lb bag of wheat was only $12, less than a quarter of what I would have paid in the health food store, even after my bulk discount, so it was a big savings (three bags I bought at a time were $36 vs. $150), particularly since I was driving the veggie van then and gas costs weren’t a concern.

But driving three hours away took a lot of time and energy, particularly since the farmer I got my raw milk from was two hours in another direction.  It was a very, very long day when I did that shopping.  Then I noticed that some of the stores I shopped in had bulk sections where many different foods were repackaged from the individual large bags into small individually priced bags by the store.  Some even had 50 lb sacks of oats on the bottom shelves.

I started buying from these stores in the smaller bags, even though it was a little more expensive than buying from the wholesaler since I saved myself a lot of driving.  And I also started getting the 50 lb sacks of oatmeal.

Then it occurred to me to speak to the manager of the bulk section in one of the supermarkets.  I try to look for win-win ways to work with people, and this was an example of this.  I wouldn’t ask a store to help me shop somewhere else, because there’s no advantage to them.  You have to think about how your request will benefit both sides. A store is in business to make money and isn’t likely to do you favors if there’s no profit for them.

My question to her was if I could order bulk amounts through the store, so the store was my middleman and I paid the store for my order.  She had never been asked this before, but pretty quickly agreed.

Why would they do this?  The store makes money since they tack on 20 percent to the price they pay when selling it to me.  There’s very little work involved for them – they just add my order onto theirs when calling it in to their distributor (actually the same source I was buying direct from), and put my stuff to the side in a separate shopping cart for me when it comes in.

I come in later the same day the order arrives, so it’s not sitting around in their way.  This is very nice for me since they’re willing to order anything for me that their distributor offers, even if they don’t get it for the store.  And the price I end up paying is comparable to what I was paying when buying directly from the wholesaler (the wholesaler sells at a lower price to the stores than to a private customer so they had room to mark it up and I still paid basically the same thing).  Very convenient, and good for everyone.

If you have an Amish or Mennonite population within a couple of hours of you, it will be worth your while to explore their stores.  These stores are used to selling in large quantities to large families and are unlikely to blink twice at your request.

I’ve spoken to several stores and all of them were willing to order bulk amounts/case lots for me – the difference is how much of a discount they’ll give (some, like Trader Joes, don’t offer a discount at all).  I would expect that if you present your request as I did, that most store managers in other parts of the country would be willing to work with you.

Good luck!

Avivah

Gardening discoveries

frugal strategies, gardening

Remember a couple of days ago I mentioned that the pears we were planning to pick were picked when we went camping?  Yesterday I accidentally discovered the person who picked them!

It was so uncanny how this happened!  I had an errand to do and went to someone’s house I had never been to.  Walking up her front walk, I noticed vegetables growing.  So when she answered the door, I commented and told her I’d love it if she could tell me what she was growing since I didn’t recognize them all.  She responded by saying she had a lot in her back yard and offered to give me the whole tour – of course I agreed!  As we were walking in her side yard, she mentioned something about her plum tree, and I asked how they did this year, commenting that a number of the area apple and pear trees didn’t do well this year because of the late frost.  She said, there’s a tree they picked this year that had loads in the area – and I said, ‘was that in such and such a place?’.  And she said ‘yes’!  She couldn’t believe that we had gotten permission and planned to pick the very same pears. 

Towards the beginning of our discussion, I finished saying something and she said to me, “I feel like I’m listening to the other side of my brain speaking!”  We do a lot of things similarly, though she’s been gardening lots longer than me.  She used recycled lumber for her raised garden beds, is making large lasagna beds in back, and is using wood chips she got for free from the city for her beds and the paths.  This last thing was really funny, since just a few hours before I made arrangements with the tree service company taking down a neighbor’s tree to dump a half a truck load of wood chips/mulch behind my garage.  What for?  To use for my lasagna beds in back and to cover the paths between my new raised beds!  Unfortunately because of how my yard is situated, there’s not room for a dump truck to dump it directly in the yard, which means a lot of work shovelling from where they dump it into the yard.  So that was part of yesterday afternoon’s chores.  A few of the kids were swimming at a friend’s house and when I came to pick them up and their friends heard we were going home to shovel wood chips, they asked if they could come along and help.  Ane they did.  You see, fun and work don’t have to be entirely separate!  The guy who gave it to us was still working down the street and kept peeking over at us to see what we were going to do with so much mulch. 🙂

– Side comment – if you garden or use a wood stove, try contacting tree service companies to ask if they have wood mulch and/or firewood you can have.  When I asked if I could have the wood chips, he asked if I also wanted firewood – they would have given me as much as they had.  These companies are always chopping down trees and take what they have to the dump, if they don’t find anyone who wants it.  Clearly, they’re not going to spend lots of time and energy trying to find you to give it to you for free, but if you ask them and you’re close enough to the area they’re working in, chances are good they’ll be happy to give it to you for free.  Free firewood would make winter heating costs negligible, but we’re unfortunately not set up for it and when we had someone over a couple of days ago to assess what was involved in changing our heating unit, we learned that it would be expensive and complicated for us to switch to wood/coal heat. 

I also noticed she had something sprinkled on top of her lasagna beds, and asked about it – she said they were wood ashes (which is what I suspected).  Wouldn’t you know, I just brought back all the ashes from our campfire for my garden beds? 🙂

She dug up a clump of chives for me and that’s now in our garden bed, and also gave me a ground cherry for the seeds – I had never seen ground cherries growing before, though I had read about them in my catalogs and considered growing some.  So now I’ll be able to start one.  She also gave me some leek seeds.  She was growing a bunch of flowers, one of which was something that spontaneously grew in our yard that I wasn’t able to identify and ripped out because I didn’t know if it was an attractive weed or something someone would want there.  I didn’t want the seeds to fall into my lasagna beds and grow up next year without knowing what it was, so it was nice to learn what it was and I even brought some of those seeds home with me, too!

It was fun to meet  and chat with someone about these things -though I write about some of it here on my blog, I don’t usually meet people who have an active interest in it. 

Avivah

Choosing a dehydrator

dehydrating, food preservation, frugal strategies

about dehydrators- is there a substantial difference in what you use a dehydrator for versus what you would use a vaccuum sealer for? i am fairly certain that at some point you researched this, so i am trying to not reinvent the wheel. is there a reason you chose one over the other?

I looked into getting a vacuum sealer at one point and didn’t see a need for it.  I might not understand well how the two work, but I’m under the impression that a dehydrator and vacuum sealer are two distinctly different appliances with different applications.  The dehydrator dries your food as a preservation technique, and the vacuum sealer sucks the air out of the container that you store something in, thereby creating a tight seal that will keep your food fresh long term.

as far as a dehydrator, i have done a lot of reading in magazines (like mother earth news, natural living, etc) and they seem to say that an electric dehydrator should only be a first step until you can handle a solar one. …. so, do you have any ideas about what would be a good intro dehydrator? i don’t want to spend a bunch, in case i don;t use it so much, but i don’t want a super junky one either, since the one i buy will most likely be the one i have for as long as it lasts. what factors should i look at before i decide? i read your posts on this, but i feel like i need a bit more guidance…

I think their point is philosophical and ecological, and I agree that solar dehydrating is good to do when you can.  If I could, I’d love to have non-electrical alternatives for all my appliances.  But solar dehydrating has its limits – like the weather!  And it takes a lot more time.  I need the reliability of a dehydrator that will do what I need, when I need, at a predictable rate.  I live where humidity can be high in the summer, which affects drying time.  I’ve wondered if I put my dehydrator in the sun if it would work well – I’d probably have to play around with leaving the door off to adjust for air flow.

As far as what to start off with, there are two ways of thinking about this.  The first is, buy something cheap and see if you use it enough to justify buying something more expensive.  That’s not my position.  I had a cheapie dehydrator and it was inefficient, the results were uneven and poor, and I’d never consider dehydrating valuable or worthwhile if I were still using something like that.  So I think, decide if dehydrating is something you’ll do a good amount of based on your research about it, and then get a good deal on something good that you can use and enjoy using for a long time.

Basically, a dehydrator is just a box with a heat source and a fan to circulate the air. Be sure that whatever model you get has a fan since without it, you’ll have to constantly rotate the trays and your results still won’t be even.  Get one that has a thermostat so you can control the temperature (different foods dry at different temps). A timer is a nice feature but not necessary.

I chose the 9 tray Excalibur, which has an excellent reputation.  I got a very good buy on it because I got a factory reconditioned model with a ten year warranty for $150.  But I know that this is still a lot of money and many people won’t consider that affordable.

American Harvest and Nesco are supposedly decent inexpensive alternatives (keep in mind the suggestions above about being sure to get a model with a thermostat).  Absolutely avoid Ronco, which is a piece of junk; I’ve heard very little positive feedback about it.  There’s a pretty new dehydrator out on the market called Good 4U which looks interesting; good price and seems to be good quality.  My concern with that one is that there’s no door because of the tray design so you’d have to have all the trays in all the time, and you couldn’t use it to let dough rise or make yogurt (which I haven’t yet done but many people do).

In the end I think getting something you can use long term is actually a more frugal strategy than getting something cheap and later getting something that really works the way you want it. Junk just isn’t a savings, not in time and not in money.

Avivah

Fig picking and preserving

dehydrating, food preservation, frugal strategies

Today I planned to go pear picking, but my boys came home from shul and told me on the way home they looked at the tree I had gotten permission to pick- and it had been stripped clean!  It had been loaded less than two weeks ago.  I didn’t pick them right away since I was waiting for school to start so my kids wouldn’t feel uncomfortable having lots of people watching them (it’s in a busy area).  And then I couldn’t pick them right before the camping trip because we were busy packing up.  Well, as the saying goes, opportunity waits for no man.  It’s a good reminder – if you find a good deal, or a good opportunity, don’t sit around assuming that it will be there for you when you feel like moseying around to it!

The boys also checked on the apple trees we picked from last year – hardly a fruit on the trees.  Later in the day I drove by another apple tree we picked that I was positive no one else would have picked from – nothing. I’m pretty sure that all these apple trees were hit by the late frost, just like the three pear trees we picked last year, and that’s why there’s no fruit.

So I decided to see if we could go fig picking, and that worked out beautifully!  We picked about 4 gallons of gorgeous figs – soft and delicious.  None of us had ever had fresh figs before.  Dh told me when I got home that the gemara says that fig trees have several different ripenings, which is exactly what I noticed when picking – half the fruit on the tree was hard and green and won’t be ready for several more weeks, and half were soft and juicy.

Since figs are so perishable, I wanted to deal with them right away.  Truth be told, I’m very sure that if I had left them around for a couple of days, the kids would have snacked them away.  But I didn’t want them to disappear with nothing to show for our trip, so I tried some new things.  First of all, I made fig jam, just honey, lemon juice, figs, and chopped walnuts.  It was more like a conserve technically, since it had fruit and nuts, but the recipe I used said ‘jam’.  Everyone loved it, but I didn’t think it looked attractive in a jar, which is too bad, since it is so delicious it would make a nice Chanuka gift.  But if it doesn’t look pretty, who would venture to open it up and try it?  So we have four pints for our family to enjoy.

Today I pulled up a bunch of plants from the raised beds to make room for some fall planting, including a lot of oregano and sage (which smelled amazing).  I put all of it into the dehydrator, and since there were some empty trays, decided to fill one tray with halved figs.  I didn’t want to dry all of them because dried fruit gets eaten up very quickly and it’s almost disheartening to see so much fruit being turned into such a small amount.  For veggies, it’s great because I cook them and they rehydrate, but the fruit is mostly used for snacks, and I don’t like watching it disappear so fast. 🙂  One tray doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s 14 inches square and holds a nice amount.  I’ll see how that turns out in the morning.  So drying the figs was the second way I preserved them.

Since the fig jam called for honey, it isn’t something that everyone in my family will eat, so I wanted to make something that didn’t use sugar or honey.  I looked through lots of recipes online but didn’t find anything.  So once again, I ended up making up my own recipe. 🙂  I cooked a mixture of rhubarb, strawberry, and chopped figs, added a can of orange juice concentrate to it (would have preferred apple but didn’t have that), and then stirred in a box of pectin for low sugar recipes.  We have 3.5 pints of that.  It still doesn’t look as vibrantly colored as I’d like, but I guess I have to accept that unless I use some artificial ingredients, the fruits I used all cook into less distinct colors than they started out with. 

And that’s the end of the figs!

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

frugal strategies, gardening, menu plans

Today ds10 asked me what we were having for lunch, and I suggested to that he start writing some ideas of what he’d like down for the week.  He ended up getting a call from a friend and going out with him, but dd13 decided to put her ideas down instead.  I asked her to make it slanted more towards non-meat meals since our camping trip was so high on the meat proteins (used 12 pounds of hamburgers, 5.5 lb beef hotdogs, and a couple of pounds of canned ground meat for chili – for three dinners).  After writing it all out, she told me now she appreciates the effort it takes for me to do it every week!  Here is what she decided on:

Shabbos – dinner – chicken breasts in coconut curry sauce; roasted root vegetables, rice, gravy, salad, pecan power bars, apples; lunch- meatballs, sweet potato pudding, marinated mushrooms, Japanese radish, sweet and sour carrots, fresh salad, hot cherry peppers, pear chutney, watermelon, pecan power bars

Sunday – b – oats and milk; l – apples and peanut butter; d – chicken coconut curry, rice, pickled veggies

Monday – b – banana bread; l – peanut butter popcorn; d – split pea soup, cornbread

Tues – b- polenta; l  – leftover split pea soup; d – pizza

Wed – b – Perfect pancakes (flour soaked overnight – not indicated in recipe); l – sweet potato fries, ricotta cheese; d – chicken noodle soup

Thurs – b- Amish oatmeal; l -to be determined; d – bean burritoes

The breakfasts will be supplemented with fruit.  Dinners and lunches are supplemented with vegetables – we’ve used a lot of our home grown veggies in the last weeks.   Almost all of the squash plants were hit by powdery mildew and are dying now, but we got a lot of nice winter squash before that hit that I’m putting in storage – mostly butternut squash, since that’s what we planted the most of, but we also have acorn squash and a couple of pumpkins.  So far our tomato plants are still doing well, despite the blight that has hit a huge number of gardeners across the country.

I really would like to put in our fall/winter garden right away, but haven’t yet done it because I don’t have compost to add to the soil.  Last Shabbos we had an organic landscaper and his family for Shabbos lunch, and he told me to speak to him since he sometimes comes across stuff that would be good for boosting soil quality for free that he’d be happy to pass on to me.  If I can get a truckload of stuff this week (not likely, but you never know!), then I’ll try to get the cold weather seeds in.  I specifically ordered a bunch of seeds that can flourish in the winter in my part of the country, mostly green leafy vegetables, to supplement our meals even when the summer is over.  I’ve never done that before and would love to see how it works out.  But it’s not worth trying to grow in clay soil that hasn’t been amended.

I also need to start saving seeds for the coming season – the autumn is already almost here!  That’s something I’ve never done before, but whatever seeds I can save from my heirlooms will save me the cost of needing to buy those seeds in the spring.

I’m planning to go fruit picking with the kids this week, pears and maybe figs, if the person I was in touch with a month ago still has them (they were unripe when we went).  Naturally, whatever we pick will end up in large part being eaten fresh this week!

Avivah

A delay in plans

frugal strategies

Surprise!  We didn’t end up leaving for our camping trip today after all!  After hours of packing, we finally finished loading up the van.  Dh wanted to do a couple of errands on the way to the campgrounds, but since two littles were sleeping, I suggested he do them first so we wouldn’t have to wake them up and then start our trip by sitting and waiting in the van while he took care of things.  He agreed that would be better, and after finishing his first errand, the van overheated  – steam billowing out – so he stopped at the mechanic to see about getting it taken care of. 

The water pump broke, and when he got a diagnostic done, we found out the radiator cracked and the thermostat needed to be replaced, too. $1400.  When he got home he immediately apologized to me since I told him about a week ago that the van started making a really terrible noise and he kind of brushed it off.  I didn’t think an apology was necessary since I didn’t have any negative feeling about him not giving much weight to my comments about the van.  Unfortunately, the noise I heard was the warning about the water pump, and because we didn’t get it looked at right away, the water pump broke, causing the radiator to overheat and crack. 

But – isn’t it wonderful that it happened when he was close to home?  And only had one child with him who was old enough to wait patiently through it all?  Imagine what the towing fees would have been like if it happened an hour away!  I’m sorry that this happened, but it could have been so much worse. 

He took it to one mechanic, who said it will be two days until he can fix it, and then to another, who said he can do it sometime tomorrow.  Meanwhile, our van is totally loaded for our camping trip and the kids are wanting to know when we’re going to finally get on the road!  While dh was still having the diagnostic done, I called a local mechanic who does house calls – who came tonight and is doing the work for $650 instead of $1400.  Not only did he finish the repairs tonight, but discovered something else that he’ll come back first thing in the morning to replace.  That’s another noise that I keep telling dh is concerning me (that started a year ago immediately after the work a different mechanic did -$2600 – no we won’t be going back to him!), that he keeps telling me isn’t important.  To be clear, dh wasn’t blowing me off.  We took the van to two different mechanics about four weeks ago when we had the difficulty with the starter not turning over, and asked about that noise and both told him it was nothing that would affect the running of the vehicle.  I’m so glad that this mechanic realized what the problem was, so we can finally get it taken care of.  It bothers me when I know something is wrong and the ‘experts’ tell me it’s nothing.  That will be another $150.  Oh, and it seems whatever is causing this noise is what led to the water pump problem, so had we been able to get that fixed when we were first asking about it, we would have saved ourselves the need for that repair.  But gam zu l’tova – this too is for the best.  I think to myself at times like this about how coins are shaped like a wheel, sometimes rolling towards you and sometimes rolling away. 

I feel so happy to have found this mechanic!  His prices are much lower because he doesn’t have a shop – he has a well equipped van and comes to you.  And not only is that extremely convenient, he’s very nice, and he’s also very competent!  Yay!  A good mechanic is a good find.  He’s coming at 8 am and as soon as he finishes (should take about an hour), we plan to leave for the campgrounds immediately.  We’ll be staying until Friday mid morning instead of Thursday afternoon, so that we’ll still have three days and three nights.  It will make Shabbos preparations tight, but we’ll be keeping Shabbos preparations simple and will have the menu plan decided on before we get home so we can jump into gear as soon as we jump out of the van!

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make this switch, since several weeks ago I had committed to pick up someone from a medical procedure she’s having done this Friday morning.  My mother has agreed to pick her up so that we can stay another day, in addition to taking care of our cat and mail while we’re gone.  I appreciate her help so much!

So today’s frugal tip is, when you first notice something crack, rip, or make an unusual sound, get it taken care of right away.  It’s so much better (and cheaper) to deal with it when it’s a small problem!  And if you do your best and it doesn’t work out, remember that you’re not the one in charge, H-shem is, and He runs things better than us all. 🙂

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

frugal strategies, menu plans

First of all, I said last week that I wanted to post the cost of each meal last week at the end of the week, and because we were didn’t adhere to our menu plan for dinners, I’m not going to do it.  I’m sorry about that – it would have been fun!  Between the kids noshing veggies from the garden every day and dd accidentally making a huge recipe of lentil rice mushroom loaf (that lasted about four meals instead of two), we didn’t need to cook as much as usual.  Which is just as well, because as it is people sometimes think I’m lying about how much we spend a month and our costs last week were probably 50% less than average and I wouldn’t want to tempt some others to disbelieve me.  🙂

We’ll be leaving on our annual camping trip after lunch today and will be gone the next few days.  In preparation for our trip, last night I made several pickled recipes to use up the vegetables in the fridge so they wouldn’t go bad in our absence.  I made 3 quarts of tomato relish (we’ll take one jar with us), 3 quarts of garlic pickles (also taking one of these), and 5 quarts of zucchini pickles.

We didn’t decide where we’d be going until 10 pm Sunday night – the fallback option was to go the place we went last year but as much as we enjoyed it there, everyone voted to try something new this year.  The size of our family complicates finding campgrounds that can easily accomodate us, since generally they won’t let so many people into one campsite, regardless of how large the site is.  We’ll have to get two campsites at the new place we’ll be trying out tomorrow.
It’s on a peninsula off the Chesapeake Bay, an area we haven’t been to before, and we’re all looking forward to exploring there .

This week’s menu plan is looser than usual because of the camping trip.  The kids do most of the packing; we loosely plan breakfasts and dinners and bring along a bunch of other food to fill in the gaps.  But I’ll share what it is so far with you:

Shabbos – dinner – challah, baked ziti, chicken cutlets, yellow squash curry, broccoli/zucchini quiche, apples and watermelon; lunch- baked ziti, roasted chicken salad, potato salad, sweet potato pie, broccoli/zucchini quiche, fresh salad, sweet and sour carrots, pickled Japanese radish, zucchini relish, pesto, beet salad, watermelon, kokosh cake ring

Sunday – brunch – vegetable omelets, yogurt; dinner – Shabbos leftovers (this is good since we’re leaving the fridge pretty empty while we’re gone)

Monday – b – not yet sure; l – chili

Camping trip:

  • breakfasts – instant grits, quick oats, eggs
  • lunches – sandwiches – tuna salad, peanut butter, cheese
  • dinners – eggplant parmesan; beef hot dogs, baked potatoes; hamburgers, yams, tomato relish, pickles
  • snacks – watermelon, smores

The kids have packed also canned vegetables like corn and peas, dried fruits, and some other miscellaneous things.  In addition to the watermelon we’ll take apples and maybe some pears.  We can also take jars of cooked ground beef and beans that I’ve canned to make a quick dinner with, but the kids aren’t sure they want to take glass jars since my ds who will be 2 next week is very…..active. 🙂 We usually take a lot of potatoes and yams so there’s enough to supplement several meals, serving them in different ways.  If there’s time before we leave, we may bake some biscuits or a couple of loaves of Cuban bread to take with us.

I’ll try to post a recipe or two from those requested last week before we leave.  Have a wonderful week!

Avivah

Kids who are picky eaters

frugal strategies, parenting

>>You make a lot of interesting and exotic foods. Do your kids eat all of it, or are they picky eaters? What is your policy in terms of if kids don’t like a certain food?  Or if they’re not picky eaters, how do you ensure that?<<

Yes, my kids eat what I make.  I don’t see any reason they shouldn’t!  I try to make foods that my kids will enjoy, and they have the ability to enjoy a wide variety of foods, so that makes it easier to make foods they like!  None of them are picky eaters at all and it’s not because they were born with a genetic tendency to eat what is put on the table. 🙂

The reason they have the ability to enjoy so many foods is because they’ve been given the opportunity on a regular basis without any emotional overtones attached to their eating habits.  I remember years ago a good friend used to always tell me how picky her children were, and how ‘lucky’ I was that my kids weren’t picky.  One day she was at our house and since it was getting late for our young children, I served an early dinner for all of them.  It was egg pancakes, something my kids always enjoyed and her ‘picky’ four or five year old daughter was gobbling it up.  My friend started exclaiming to me, with her daughter sitting right there, “I can’t believe she’s eating this!  She never eats anything.  She’s so picky, I can’t get her to eat anything.  I can’t believe it!”  And right on cue, her daughter suddenly stopped eating and told her mother she didn’t like it.  It was so obvious that the problem wasn’t the child or the way she ate, but her mother paying too much attention to it; the child got a lot of attention as well as a feeling of power because of her ‘pickiness’.

Here’s my general approach to food: Don’t make a big deal of it and neither will they.  Food is just food.  Kids learn very quickly when the mother has a lot of emotion invested in their eating habits.  I serve the food, and if they’re hungry, they’ll eat.  I rarely insist on them eating if they don’t feel like it.  (They do have to sit at the table with everyone, whether they’re choosing to eat or not, since mealtime isn’t about just the food; it’s a time for family togetherness and connection.)  If they don’t want what I’m serving (and don’t think that they absolutely love every single dish I make – nope!), that’s fine with me.  We have three meals a day and if they’re not hungry right at that moment, then they can eat when the next meal comes along.  I don’t make a second dinner for someone who doesn’t want what everyone else is having, and they don’t have the alternative of making themselves a sandwich or eating a bowl of cereal.  What I serve is what the choice is.

Does that sound harsh? I don’t think it is. It’s a simple biological reality – the body gives a person signals as to when to eat.  Hunger is the best spice.  🙂  If they don’t feel like eating, I understand that’s not what their body needs right then.  I don’t like every food, and I don’t expect them to. I don’t put food on my children’s plates except when they’re small – we put out serving bowls in the center of the table and everyone takes as much or as little as they want.  I’ve sometimes suggested that they take just a small amount of something new that they’re not sure they’ll like.  I don’t insist they finish everything on their plates, but I also want them to learn not to be wasteful, so I don’t want them to heap their plates full and then end up throwing most of it away.

I categorized this under frugal strategies because the willingness to eat a wide variety of foods means you can utilize whatever ingredients are affordable at that time, without worrying that someone will turn up their nose at it.  I so often heard people say they could never cook like I do because their families are so picky that they wouldn’t eat beans, or they have to have meat every night.  Picky children weren’t created in a vacuum and it’s a situation that can be changed.

Avivah