>>I’ve found that since I have such a good stockpile of non-perishable food, my grocery bill is less every month.<<

I got online with the intent to post about exactly this point, Michelle.  I realized this morning that I’ve been misrepresenting how much I spend monthly on food here with all of you.  I’ve been saying that I spend $600 monthly for our family of ten.  But in fact, since I buy about six weeks worth of food for that amount, my true monthly costs are much closer to $400.  And every single month, though I’m spending the same $600, the pantry is getting a little more full.   

The reason this suddenly hit me is that today is the day that I re-start my monthly budget, and I’m not planning to do my main shopping for another couple of weeks.  I did do some quick supplementary shopping, though, and got about $110 of chicken and veggies today (in addition to chicken for the next couple of weeks for Shabbos, it included a case of chicken wings, almost 35 lb, that I’m putting aside for meals during chol hamoed Pesach – bbq wings make a tasty and inexpensive meal), and am well set for another couple of weeks. 

Actually, I realized, I’m set for more than that.  When I buy chicken, fruits, or vegetables that end up being canned or dehydrated, since that money has been spent in that given month, I consider them as consumed.  But in actuality, they usually aren’t used for weeks or even months.  A case in point is the beef that I’m using for this week’s beef stew – I canned a lot of it after Sukkos.  That money was spent long ago but I’ll enjoy the benefits now.  The same thing with all of the ingredients that I’m using for almost everything else in my weekly menu plan – I don’t have to go out and buy anything.  We have cottage cheese, cheese, and butter in the freezer; bulk oatmeal, wheat, cornmeal and sweeteners for baking; potatoes, yams, and eggs bought by the case last month; dried beans bought on sale.     

This is something that everyone can (and should) do – make it your personal challenge to make your budget for four weeks last for five.  It will probably mean choosing cheaper alternatives to some of what you currently are buying, until you get stocked up.  But you’ll find it paying off as you find you can go longer periods of time between shopping trips, and are able to spend less on groceries while the quality of your diet stays the same or even improves.

You know, with the wiggle room this creates in my food budget, I could start buying more expensive cuts of meat or stop paying attention to the unit pricing of items I buy.  I could buy more processed food so I spend less time in the kitchen. But why would I do that?  My careful spending isn’t motivated by a lack of money (most people seem to assume that frugality is a strategy taken on out of financial desperation), but in the desire to be as responsible as I can with the means that I have. 

It’s sad to me that some people assume that someone who spends the amount I do must be giving up quality or quantity – you know, “Well, I buy healthy foods and they cost so much more, and she would have to spend a lot more, too, if she cared about nutrition,” or “We like to enjoy our food, and her kids must be deprived to eat such a cheap diet.”  It makes no difference to me how much people spend, as long as they can afford it and they have peace of mind, but I sometimes wonder if people want to think that those who spend much less than they do are deprived or off balanced, so that they can continue to justify their spending habits as essential.  I haven’t had to give up anything to shop for food the way that I do (except unnecessary time and energy!).  In fact, I buy a lot of things that many people would consider luxuries (for example, coconut/palm oils, honey/agave/sucanat – no cheap oils or sugar), and we’re able to eat a very healthy and abundant diet that we all enjoy. It’s shopping carefully that makes room in the budget for items that could otherwise be considered luxuries.

It’s so much more fun to see how we’re the ones who have the power to learn new strategies.  It’s a fun challenge to make meals we love and simultaneously keep my food bills low!

Avivah

Almost three months ago in mid December, I wrote a post about my concerns that people’s credit card limits were suddenly being slashed.  Well, it’s good the mainstream news eventually gets around to covering issues that are happening in real people’s lives, so that the masses can be warned. Here’s a recent article now being featured at the top of Yahoo news as of today.

Take a look at this to see what’s going on – by the time the mainstream news covers something, it’s usually not anything new, but so prevalent that it’s a major issue for a lot of people.   This article makes it sound a lot more mild than it actually is, since a huge number of people facing this scenario aren’t able to quickly pay off their cards or reduce their spending to below their limits, making for massive fees (note that no one in that situation was featured).  The article didn’t mention that credit card companies are also suddenly drastically raising interest rates, something that should be of concern to anyone who doesn’t pay off their accounts in full each month.  If you are still heavily dependent on your credit cards, please, start weaning yourself off of them immediately.

Also, I think it’s prudent to keep an eye on your credit card account just in case there’s a sudden policy change that takes effect.  Don’t think you’ll get any warning.  For the last few months I’ve been checking mine twice a month instead of just once (an online account makes this easy), because getting a bill that shows lots of unexpected fees isn’t fun, and neither is trying to argue with a credit card company representative to have them refund those fees.  Prevention is the best cure, and forewarned is forearmed!

Avivah

I often see the suggestion made to join a warehouse store to save money on food and paper goods, because it’s assumed that it’s going to be a cheaper option.  I used to shop at warehouse stores, but now I seriously question if it’s a financial savings for most shoppers. 

First of all, there’s the membership fee of about $40 for a year.  That doesn’t sound like much, right?  In a year, of course you’ll save lots more than that!  Or will you?  So let’s start by looking to see if you can recoup your fee, which you’ll have to do to break even.  (There’s no savings unless you can do more than break even, obviously.)

Saving money in a warehouse store is an art, but most people think that all they have to do is shop there to save money!  They walk around dumping oversized packages of whatever strikes their fancy into their carts, positive that it’s lots cheaper than they could buy it for in a regular supermarket.  Everyone knows that buying in bulk will save money, and seemingly, when you’re in a warehouse store, you’re buying in bulk.  But things aren’t always what they may seem, and that’s an assumption that will cost you money.  My hesitations about endorsing warehouse stores as money saving options are below.

1) First of all, the majority of food items sold in warehouse stores are processed items.  When you buy processed foods, you’re buying foods that are full of additives, GMOs, high fructose corn syrup, plus bad fats like cottonseed/vegetable/soybean oil.   And you’re paying significantly more than the cost of ingredients themselves, for the convenience of not having to make the food yourself.   Right off the bat, I’d tell you to cut your convenience food consumption and that will make a much bigger dent in your food budget than shopping at stores like these.  But I know that many people enjoy these foods and don’t want to give them up, and are happy to get them a little cheaper.  So once you’ve determined the item you’re considering is a value for you to purchase, look at the unit pricing.  How much is it per ounce?  How does it compare to the per ounce cost of a smaller box at your supermarket?  You need to know this information to be an educated shopper.  It might be a little less expensive than the regularly priced item (or not – the Sam’s Club here is in the same complex as Walmart, and I often can find the same thing cheaper at Walmart – and you don’t need a membership to shop at Walmart).  But once you start comparing the sale prices of the supermarket items to warehouse items, the super-sized boxes stop looking so appealing! 

2) Then, most of the foods in the warehouse store are brand names, with the exception of the one store brand.  Name brand companies have spent plenty on advertising to make people think they’re offering top value, but in reality, there’s not much difference between most of the companies.  Recognizing this makes it easier to stay away from name brands, and choosing the less expensive labels is another good way to save money (not including fantastic sales or couponing, which can make it possible to spend less on name brands, but which only apply in regular supermarkets). 

3) What about when it’s not less expensive to buy in the larger package?  Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because you’re buying a fifty pound bag of something, it by default must be cheaper.  I haven’t found this to be the case at all.  On a regular basis I find it less expensive to buy items in the smaller packages – for example, it’s significantly cheaper for me to buy 1 lb bags of beans or rice than to buy it in 25 or 50 pound bags.  It may be counterintuitive, but it’s true.  Again, you need to know what the unit pricing on the item is.

4) So you’ve determined the item is a good value, and you bring it home.  Do you use it in the same quantities you would otherwise have used it?  When I shopped at these stores, I found myself buying larger amounts of things than needed because ‘it was such a good deal’.  But if you’d usually use a standard box of Cheerios for your children’s breakfast, and you end up using a mega sized box (ie, double) instead because you feel it was so cheap, you haven’t really saved anything.  You’ve just spent almost double what you would have otherwise, without even realizing how you’re draining your budget – because you’re busy feeling so good that you bought your Cheerios cheaply.  People do the same thing when being extravagant in the use of paper plates or paper napkins, because they bought so much. That’s fine if your goal is to increase your quantities, but don’t fool yourself and think that you’ve saved money. 

5) I also found myself buying things that I didn’t really need, just because it seemed like a good price.  So you need to be sure that you won’t fritter away whatever savings you think you’re gaining by buying things that you don’t really need.

I found that there were only about three items that were money savers for me, and none of them justified the cost of membership – 40 lb bucket of powdered laundry detergent, instant yeast, and dishwashing liquid.  At the end of my membership period, I bought enough of those items to last for six months.  I had initially planned to renew after six months passed (thereby getting 18 months of shopping out of my 12 month membership), but then realized that it would be more worthwhile to put some energy into finding cheaper alternatives or better sources for those items.  And that’s what I did.  I’m able to easily find every single item I ever used to buy at the same price or less without ever entering a warehouse store.

(Obviously, if you live where there are several large supermarkets, there will be more competitive sales on food and paper goods than for someone who lives in a very rural area and has only one small local store.  In that case, they’d probably save money at the warehouse store.  I don’t think the majority of shoppers fit into this category, though.)

To sum up, psychologically warehouse stores are very effective, because people really believe they’re saving money. And if their prior option was to shop at regular supermarket prices for name brand processed foods, they will save money.  But for the careful shopper, she’d be hard pressed to save enough to cover her membership fees in the course of a year.

Avivah

>>Do you have a budget? If so, how did you create your budget?” 

The answer is yes, I do keep to a budget, but since there are a few steps in beginning to budget, in order that this will be of help I’ll start at with the first thing first.

The very first thing you need to do is track your spending – every penny of it.  If you use debit and credit cards exclusively, this will be very easy.  Take your last three months of bank/credit card statements out.  If you use any cash at all, make a note of this, too, no matter how small or insignificant it seems to be.  Twenty dollar bills get frittered away with frightening ease with nothing to show for it, and you need to know where it’s gone.  Then , write down exactly what you spent and what it was spent on. 

After you’ve written everything down, look at where your money went.  You’ll see some categories emerge – food, bills (each one should be it’s own category), clothing, transportation, gas, medical, etc.  Write down each category at the top of a paper, and then write down under it the expenses that relate to that.  If you have so many things that you find the expenses hard to categorize, that’s fine. More categories will probably help you keep things clear than fewer.

Once you’ve done this, total up how much you’ve spent in each category.  This will give you a very clear idea of exactly where your money is going, and you must know what your real spending is and where it’s going.  Someone with six kids a couple of months ago told me she spent $150 a week on food.  I told her I’d love to hear her tips because she’s clearly using a lot of frugal strategies to achieve that.  She looked surprised and told me she wasn’t especially careful.  I right away knew that she had no idea what she was really spending.  About six weeks later we bumped into each other again, and she told me that she was totally wrong, that she spent significantly more than she thought (as in $400 a week).  But it wasn’t until we spoke that she started to pay attention to it. 

You can see how it’s going to be hard to budget successfully if you think you spend $600 in a given category, and are really spending $1600!  And it’s also going to affect your receptiveness to getting your costs in order, if you think you already are being careful.  (Here’s something I’ve found – most people think they are pretty reasonable in their spending, regardless of their debt loads.)  So reality is important to have on your side. 

Here are my categories: maaser (tithe – this gets taken off the top before anything), mortgage, car insurance, telephone, gas (for the vehicle), gas/electric, life insurance for dh, life ins. for me, transportation (for dh), midwife (she’s wonderful about letting me make monthly payments instead of one large lump sum), clothing, savings.  I have specific categories at certain times of year for holiday expenses that I determine in advance (before Purim includes mishloach manos, matanos le’evyonim; Pesach includes shmura matza and other related expenses).  I also have a miscellaneous category, but I don’t suggest you do that until you’ve been tracking your spending for a while and are already very careful with your money.  It’s too easy to get sloppy about that.

 Don’t be afraid of this step.  Once you know what you’re spending, then you can start to have fun slashing every single category.  There are so many frugal strategies in every area of life, and it’s very exciting to see how much less you can spend without compromising your quality of life.  In fact, living responsibly within your financial means and utilizing your creative side to do that not only doesn’t compromise your quality of life, but greatly improves it!  As I’ve said before, frugality isn’t about doing without; it’s about finding out what’s most important to you and making sure your spending responsibly reflects that.  It’s definitely a lot more fun to live debt free, knowing when you spend on something that you really have the money to buy it and to find alternatives when you don’t have the money, than to live in denial. 

Avivah

I’ve mentioned that I love to read, and generally have a pile that I’m in the middle of reading at any given time on various topics.  One area that’s been of interest to me for years is finances.  I’ve heard several times that Dave Ramsey (whose books I think are great) has very effectively marketed the ideas of Larry Burkett, and finally decided to read some of Larry Burkett’s books.

I just finished a book by Burkett entitled The Coming Economic Earthquake.  This book was written in 1991, and details the concerns Burkett had about the economy and his predictions as to how it would play out.  As he said in his intro, he went out on a limb to write this, since if he was right, people would say he was lucky, and if he was wrong, people would say he didn’t know what he was talking about, but he felt it was his obligation to warn people about what he saw coming.  He estimated his predictions would play out around the year 2000, though he said it could take longer.  When asked before he died if he thought he had been off track in making these predictions since it hadn’t yet happened, he said, no, he thought it would be even worse than he predicted because the longer the delay, the worse the earthquake.

This book was riveting reading, and I told my ds15 and dd14 that I thought they’d enjoy reading it, too.  (They have to read for an hour a day from something I’ve approved – that hour doesn’t include their recreational reading – so I would allow this for their official reading.)  It’s very clear, interesting, and systematically puts together a lot of information that I’ve spent months assembling for myself from various sources.  What makes it especially interesting is to see how on target he was – every day right now, every time I hear the news or read an online financial article, I see exactly what he was predicting playing out.  Whereas someone might have discounted what he wrote even two years ago as unlikely and alarmist, now it’s almost eery to see how on target he was.

Last February, long before there was any news or discussion about it, I became very concerned about the economy, and shared that privately with some of you.  I’ve been asked about what my concerns were based on, and tried to succinctly respond by summing up several major factors, how they tied in together, and how they would affect all of us.  Larry Burkett has done a much better job than I ever could in explaining this!  I really recommend this book, to understand many aspects of the economy and why what we’re going through is happening. As I said, it’s clear and easy to read, unlike other books filled with graphs and technical jargon that I’ve found challenging to digest.

My ds told me he didn’t want to read it, because listening to me discuss the economy is depressing enough.  🙂  (He is reading it and enjoying it very much now.)  But I told him that I actually didn’t find it depressing at all – if anything, it almost cheered me up.  It’s bothered me for many months now to feel like I was seeing things that no one was expressing the slightest bit of concern about, and I felt bringing them up would cause me to be labeled paranoid (though now the regular news is a lot more alarming than what I shared with friends thirteen months ago).  Somehow it heartened me to see it all outlined just the way it was, to know what we’re really going to be dealing with and why, and that it’s not my overactive negative outlook (I’m not a pessimist by nature at all).   It’s always easier to deal with something concrete than something vague.  So go get it from your library and get educated!

Avivah

The toilet in my kids’ bathroom hasn’t been working properly for several weeks, and it’s been annoying but manageable because there are other bathrooms they can use.  My husband had tried about three weeks ago with a neighbor to fix it (the neighbor had a powerful tool to use for it), but it didn’t help.  I really didn’t want to call a plumber, but wishing a problem like this will resolve itself on its own is foolish, and that toilet can’t be properly cleaned because it drains so slowly when flushed.  So last night I brought it to my husband’s attention again, and he was very gracious about my reminder.  🙂 

His first response was to say that I should call a plumber.  I told him if he wanted to do that, he was welcome to, and however he wanted to resolve it was fine with me.  I know that trying to figure out what the problem was really wasn’t something he wanted to do, after already spending so much time on it.  But I also knew he didn’t want to pay a plumber to do something he probably could figure out – I mean, it was kind of obvious to him that something was stuck there, and it was just an issue of how to get it out.  (We once called a repairman in on erev Pesach a few hours before a three day yom tov began, because the fridge wasn’t cooling at all.  He walked in, pulled the fridge out from the wall, pulled out a turkey bone from the cooling fan behind it, and told us his fee.  $60 for less than five minutes.  I was glad to have it working again and felt it was worth the price, but after seeing how simple the solution was to what seemed like a big problem, my dh was motivated to try to figure out what was going on himself in the future before paying someone else for it.)

He bought some bathroom tools this morning, and together with the kids (they’re active and helpful assistants! – they were having fun working the auger for an hour today) tried it again.  Finally he came downstairs and told me he’d have to take the whole toilet off to get whatever it was out, that it must be something rigid and hard inside, because anything flexible or soft would have come out by then.  So he totally took it out – and thought he found the problem.  Those of you with young children can appreciate how a not so tiny plastic clamp and large plastic screw could not only be thrown in the toilet, but someone would try to flush it down.   Those things were wedged in the pipe, and that’s what he thought was keeping everything from passing through.  He removed them and was very happy to have gotten to the root of the problem, but the toilet still wasn’t flushing properly.  He kept working at it, and found the shower head from their shower wedged in, still assembled in one piece!  (My ds10 when he saw that, said, “Oh, I was wondering why the water flow from the shower was different!”  Why doesn’t anyone mention these things to me when they happen?)  Getting it out wasn’t a small job because it’s round and really stuck in there; it perfectly fits the inside of the pipe.  Actually, it seems that all of the effort to push whatever was in the way through the pipes just further wedged this in!  Once he got it out, everything was as good as new!  (I know that if you don’t have children you can’t imagine how this is possible – the answer is a 17 month old plus a 2 3/4 year old equal these kind of fun situations!)

For those of you wondering, no, my husband isn’t a plumber and he’s learned most of the practical handyman type skills since we bought this house less than three years ago, out of necessity.  Home owners know how there’s always something breaking or needing repair, and it gets very expensive, very quickly, if your only recourse is to call a professional in.  The bigger your family, the more things happen as a result of regular living, and we have a lot of people very actively using our home all day long, every day!  It’s very financially worthwhile to figure out how to do the majority of your home repairs on your own.  We’ve gotten a couple of how-to books, and use the internet to research specific problems and how to fix them. 

You won’t be surprised that I’ll tell you it’s very gratifying to find ways to do something like this, to successfully resolve an issue that would have the vast majority of people dialing the plumber long ago.  My husband has a great sense of accomplishment after finishing this project!  The kids are already happy to see it flushing normally again.  And I’ll be so happy to go into Shabbos with the kids’ bathroom not only working well but properly cleaned.

Avivah 

First of all, several of you have emailed me and asked questions – please don’t think I’m ignoring you!  It’s just that I have limited time to be at the computer, but I will get to it!  (I tend to answer questions posted to the blog faster than those sent to my personal inbox.)

Today my kids made hamantaschen, while I took care of some costume stuff for them.  I think at this point everyone is just about set.  Until last year, I sewed most of their costumes, and occasionally bought some of the pieces they needed from the thrift store.  I made the typical kind of costumes – clowns, queens, brides, kings, prairie girl – and was able to make some very nice things by repurposing expensive satins and velvets from prom dresses that I got at the thrift store.  Making costumes is fun and easy, because they can look great even if they aren’t perfect.  There’s nothing like high quality material to hide a mediocre sewing job! 

But as they’ve been getting older, they want to do something more creative, which is fine with me.  I told them as long as I don’t have to think of the idea, I’m happy to help them put together what they want.  But I don’t really have very much to do with it for the kids ages 10 and up.  They go through what we have and find ways to make what they want.  That leaves just the younger kids for me.  The older kids have been helping the 6 and 8 year olds think of ideas, so I haven’t even had to think about what to do for them. But as of last night, they hadn’t finalized what they wanted to do for them.

Yesterday, I responded to a post from someone in my community giving away a couple of homemade crayon costumes, and I called, since the sizes seemed suitable for my ds6.  It turns out it was an old neighbor, who was delighted to give them to me.  I picked them up today, and it turns out that they will fit my dd8 and ds6, which is great!  (And one day, they will be perfect for my two little ones, who are also close in size.)  They are made very simply – basically a colored piece of felt (one orange, one red) made into a long tunic, with black felt cutouts in the shapes found on a Crayola crayon, with RED or ORANGE down the front.  They stapled all of the black felt pieces on, which was a smart way to quickly put it together. But I wanted something that looked a little nicer and more durable, so I sewed all the pieces down.  It looks a lot better now.  We have a red long sleeved red tshirt in the right shade for my dd8 to wear, and my ds6 will wear a black shirt and pants underneath.  I was considering making hats for them to look like the pointed tips of crayons, but don’t think I’ll bother – I could probably find something else to do with my time. 🙂

I have plenty of costumes for the 1.5 and almost 3 year old in our collection, so I’ll pull out something for them the day before.  My ds10 made a half and half costume for himself, using clothes we already have – on one side he’s one thing, and on the other side, he’s something else.  He figured out an ingenious way to wear two pairs of pants and look like they’re one pair.  Dd12 has a dashiki type robe (Indian? – not sure), dd14 is putting together Pippi Longstocking, and ds15 is so far settling with a funny tie for the night, and will borrow what I got for my dh the next day (dh has to work until early afternoon, so he won’t be needing it). 

And me?  I don’t dress up.  I’m just too straight and boring, I guess.  Every year I think I should at least get a funny hat or something, but the day I actually do that, my kids will fall over in disbelief!

It’s nice to know that all of this is taken care of and out of the way! (Oh – and the cost of all of the costumes – free!)

Avivah

Late Thursday afternoon I saw something posted on Craig’s List, that someone had about a hundred boxes of stuff they were giving away, and were putting it out for whoever wanted to sift through.  I very spontaneously decided to head over that minute with three of my kids (ds6, dd8, dd12) – as I was driving there, I kept wondering why I was doing this.  I usually ignore this kind of posting, my dh had just gotten home from work, and I had a tight time schedule because my girls had choir practice just a couple of hours later.  And I knew that the chances of finding much were iffy (since people respond so fast to ‘free’ postings) since we would be getting there a while after it was posted and it was getting dark.  It really wasn’t logical at all.  But for some reason I felt like I wanted to go anyway.  I told my kids on the way there, that we would find whatever H-shem wanted us to find, and regardless of getting there late, it would be what was meant to be – I didn’t want them to be disappointed that they came along. 

When we got there, all that was left were maybe 15 – 20 boxes that were pretty picked over.  But since we were there, we looked around.  While I was looking, a woman came out of the building next door, which it turns out was the auction house that was giving the stuff away – it was leftovers from various lots that they had bidding on which were left over.  She told me that they had a huge room full of clothes on the rack inside, and I was welcome to come in and take whatever I wanted!  So you don’t think I said, ‘no, thanks’, do you?!

When I went inside, the manager of the auction house told me they had been planning to open a thrift store in this space, but after getting it mostly set up, were so busy they decided not to.  He had been planning to post the individual clothing items on Craig’s List the next day to sell, but so many people had come for the stuff he posted, that they on the spur of the moment decided to give all of this stuff away, too.  Since he decided this after most of the people had come, I ended up being the second person they told – there was only one other family in this large area going through everything while we were there. 

My kids had a great time – it’s so much fun when you can get whatever you want, without thinking of the cost!  We got so much stuff – some of it for use as it was, like the four pairs of top quality men’s sneakers (do you know how expensive good sports shoes are for teenagers?!), quilts/blankets (more blankets are always handy, right?) and pillows, and other clothing.  I found a couple of funky clothing items (traditional clothing from other cultures) that will be perfect for Purim – one for dh (though ds15 liked this one so much he wants to wear it), one for dd12 (who has been complaining she can’t decide what to dress up as).  Other things I got with the intent to repurpose them (I love repurposing!), like some old sheets and baby flannel blankets – I’m thinking of using them for quilting and cloth diapering. It was funny that it was the day after I posted about using rags instead of paper towels, and what I used for cleaning rags, because I found a box with a bunch of unused xmas towels – now I have a very full basket in the kitchen for mopping and cleaning with (around here, you can’t have too many)! 

I tried to be selective, because I keep in mind that even when things are free, my space to store things is very limited, and I’m going to have to find a place for everything.  So I didn’t just throw everything I could into a box to take home, even though I probably should have taken advantage of the opportunity and gotten more than I did.  I also got six nice pairs of mens’ slacks, even though they’re too big for my dh and son, because I thought it would be nice to pass them along to someone in the community here who would appreciate them (I already posted them on our online community board as free, but no calls yet), and a bunch of little girls’ leotards, which I bagged up to send to the local dance/ballet program, for children who might not have the funds to buy their own.  I also got a great book that I already have (the Reader’s Digest Complete How To book, or something like that), to pass on to someone else who will enjoy it – it’s super useful to someone who wants to do their own home repairs, etc.

There wasn’t a lot of kids’ clothing, but we did get some baby clothes, and the kids found some toys and I let them bring home two stuffed animals – one of which is a huge raccoon the size of my toddler (but much fatter) – he had a ball dancing around with it as if it were a dancing partner on Shabbos while we were singing.  Ds6 thinks it’s fun because it’s big enough for him to lay on.

My dd12 got lots of stuff, even if she wasn’t sure what to do with it, and ended up getting a nice amount of sweaters/tops my size – well, they will be my size when I’m my size again!  She got a bunch of blue jeans, because she has a book of crafts to do with denim material.  I actually saw some jeans and was seriously considering getting them to make a quilt with.  I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to use denim to make quilts for the boys’ room – the plain blue of the new flannel sheets is kind of boring, though it looks uniform – but we don’t wear denim so the pants would have to come from a cheap or free source like this.   But when I was there, I decided not to take them because I don’t want to overwhelm myself with waiting projects to do at this busy time of year.  That was probably a mistake and I’ll end up regretting it when I get around to doing the quilts, but at the time, I was really trying to keep focused (which isn’t easy at a time like this, when there’s so much but not necessarily of things you were looking for specifically).  But we still got lots of stuff.

My dd did get to choir practice quite late, but she felt it was so much fun going with me that it was worth it.  It’s nice to go somewhere like this and have the kids all enjoy it as much (more than, actually!) me.  My dd14 and ds10 were sorry they hadn’t been given the chance to come along, too!

I often think about how you don’t know where H-shem will send you bracha (blessing) from, but it constantly seems to be flowing into our lives.  You have to just keep your eyes open, be receptive to what He sends and the form it comes in, and recognize it with gratitude when you get it.

Avivah

Here we go, another way to chop down your monthly costs, going where few dare to go!  Seriously, paper goods add up quickly, and most people don’t stop to figure just how much they are adding to their monthly costs.  Paper goods can be convenient, but the convenience comes at a cost.

We use very, very few paper goods, with disposable diapers being the biggest exception (in the winter, not the summer).  I don’t consider this part of our food budget – it’s budgeted as part of our miscellaneous needs each month, but the amounts aren’t very significant at all.  I think it’s a good idea for people to separate their miscellaneous expenses from their food costs, even if they’re purchased at the same store, so that they have a clear idea of what they’re really spending in each area.  I’ll start at the beginning, and if I forget something, then ask me, okay? 

Disposable dishes and cutlery – we hardly use these at all, except maybe on the second day of a three day yom tov if we have guests and I’m not feeling like washing any more dishes by that point.  At one point I realized that I never had enough silverware, and that the pieces from our service of 12 had slowly gotten lost.  (I think pieces sometimes get thrown away by younger children when they clear their plates.)  So as much as I like good quality silverware, I decided to head to Walmart and buy a bunch of cheapie stuff – they were five pieces for $1.  I got thirty each of soup spoons, small spoons, forks, and 18 knives ($21 total).  That gives me enough for the average Shabbos to get through without having to wash them.  (I don’t generally mind washing dishes, but on Shabbos I really dislike it.)  I recently stopped in and got a bunch more of that pattern, since I noticed the attrition rate was beginning to affect my supply.:)

Dishes – we use regular dishes all week, including Shabbos and holidays.  For Pesach, my inlaws’ contribution for several years has been a stack of disposable dishes – one year they asked how they could help (since they come for the seder, etc.), and that’s what my dh suggested, since particularly on Pesach, it seems that cooking and cleaning up from meals is nonstop.  Years ago, we also used paper plates for a couple of weeks after I gave birth, but that was when my kids were younger and I was doing all the dishes.  Now they’re well trained and wash the dishes, so after birth is the same as any other time. 

We also used to buy disposable plastic cups for Shabbos (we had enough to patch together from different styles during the week), because our glasses were always breaking, and it didn’t take long for a complete set to become uncomplete.  Then after I don’t know how many sets of glassware, I tried buying the rigid plastic cups, that are clear and look like glass.  They cracked after being dropped a few times.  Then I tried the unbreakable plastic (well, unbreakable to any other family, but we managed to break even some of those!), but most of them disappeared over time.   Kind of like the silverware dilemma I shared above.  (Those of you with small families might not understand how this is possible, but this is the reality I live with – that I can buy 20 – 30 cups and only find 2 when it’s time to set the table, and that’s when all the dishes have been washed. :))  I really didn’t like using the disposables, especially since I didn’t keep them enough at the forefront of my mind, and ran out too often.  I kept thinking about what I could use instead.  A couple of months ago I noticed some clear poly-carbonate cups in Walmart that looked like glass but were very sturdy.  The problem was that they were a bit more than I wanted to pay.  However, H-shem was guiding my steps in the store, and that very day I found the same glasses, but colored instead of clear, in the clearance section, for .50 each.  (I’ve never before noticed a clearance section in Walmart.)  I bought all that were left – I think there were 13, but would have gladly gotten more if they had them.  I told my kids when I brought them home that they must not be taken to other parts of the house, and so far, almost two months later, we still have all of them.  And none are broken.  So now we don’t need disposable cups even for Shabbos.  Whew – that saves us a big $1.29 every few weeks.

Napkins – okay, I use paper napkins for Shabbos/yom tov, though not the very expensive ones.  I’ve tried several times to use cloth napkins, and I don’t like them.  They don’t absorb – the material they all seem to be made of kind of just smears the grease around.  Then they get stained, and I’m obviously not a laundry maven, because I wasn’t successful in getting the stains out.  Putting out cleaned but stained napkins isn’t something I’m comfortable with, so they were relegated to rag status.  At some point in the last few months, I had the brainstorm to use colored wash cloths, which are great for wiping hands or table spills, but not so beautiful for Shabbos.  So I buy one large package of 500 napkins, 1 ply (I don’t remember how much they cost, but not more than a few dollars), which lasts at least at least a couple of months.  For weekday meals, we have the washcloths.

Paper towels – I don’t buy these at all, and don’t think I ever have (if I’ve had them, it’s because a visiting parent bought them).  I use cleaning rags – I used to cut up our old towels, but we didn’t wear out our towels at the rate necessary to keep up with the spills needing to be wiped up.  So to bulk up our supply, I bought a couple of large packages of shop towels when a local store was going out of business.  I think I got something like 50 for $15.  They’re red, which I like because they are easy to sort into the wash and out of the clean laundry basket, and I use them for everything – wiping down the table/counters, cleaning spills, wiping hands.  They’re also good for washing dishes with.  I keep them in a basket in the kitchen, along with any old towels, washcloths, and cloth napkins.  Also, old cloth diapers also make good rags – we also had some of these in our cleaning stash, but the conflict was that some kids didn’t distinguish between old cloth diapers that were ragged and very nice new ones.  You can see why the relevance of the red cleaning rags now, right? 

Plastic bags – I periodically buy sandwich bags, the cheapest ones that are $1 for 150.  I also reuse plastic bags that foods come in, if they are dry and clean, like bread bags.  They usually don’t need more than a quick shaking out of crumbs.  You’d be surprised how many bags come into your home that are useful in this way once you start paying attention.  I also reuse the cheapie bags I buy, if they are dry and clean – many of the times, I use them to put in a leftover muffin, piece of bread, biscuit, and there’s no reason not to use them again.  I don’t rewash baggies, mainly because: a) my kids wash most of the dishes, and I don’t ask them to do that, and b) I buy cheap sandwich bags (only ziploc type bags are worth washing), and don’t feel the effort is worth saving a dollar every two or three months.  Also, I have plastic containers of different sizes to keep food in, so this minimized how many bags I use.  Buying these was an upfront cost, but there are some companies that sell decent quality containers for signifiantly less than Rubbermaid.  Also, you can reuse the plastic containers that some foods come in (like cottage cheese, or margarine – not that I’m recommending you eat that horrible stuff, blech), and then you don’t have to buy any. I happen to be partial to square or rectangular containers because they use space more efficiently so I’ve chosen to buy the less expensive containers as my main containers.

Aluminum foil – I reuse the pieces that are basically clean and dry.  I don’t rewash it, though, because it gets too complicated to keep track of what was used for dairy and what was used for meat.  Not to mention too messy to store two sets of used foil.

Disposable pans – I’m very happy that since I recently aquired stainless steel baking pans, I no longer need to buy these. When I did buy them, I reused them a number of times, making it a long lag between buying new ones. 

Baking/parchment paper – I used a lot of this when I used disposable aluminum pans, because I didn’t like cooking directly on it.  Now that I’m using stainless steel pans, it’s cut down on my parchment paper use.  When I do use it, it’s usually for challah or cookies, and the pieces that are in good condition can be reused several times.

All of this does make for more dishwashing – significantly more – and more laundry – not so much more.  But it cuts down on costs, cuts down on time spent in stores, and cuts down on running out of something and needing to go to the store.  If you’re in an area where you’re charged for garbage pick-up, it also cuts down on your trash costs (the large cost of pick up itself, plus the small cost of extra garbage bags).  On an ecological front, it cuts down on the huge amount of things that go into a landfill and won’t be decomposed until long after our grandchildren are grown.  Nice when something can be good for you and the rest of the planet, too. 🙂

Avivah

So many times I hear people complain about the cost of eating kosher, and it’s true that kosher food tends to cost more.  But it’s not helpful to feel like victims and say how easy it would be to keep our food budgets low ‘if only’.  After all, many people who aren’t limited to eating only kosher struggle with their food budgets, and they would also have to learn new strategies and ways of thinking about their spending if they wanted to get their costs down.

I’ve often found incredibly cheap meats and cheeses (non kosher, of course), and thought how I could easily feed my family for $300-$400 instead of $600 a month if I didn’t have to eat kosher.  My feelings about this are, we all choose in what light we want to view the objective reality, and I don’t find it helpful to look at things in a negative way.  So I choose to remember every time I go shopping and put something in my cart that costs more than I’d otherwise pay, that I’m fortunate to be doing an easy mitzva – one that the only challenge to is sometimes paying a bit more.  Even though my budget isn’t very large and I like to save money, I’m doing it because what H-shem (G-d) wants of me matters, and I’m happy to have a tiny opportunity to remember that. 

All of that being said, let’s look at really what the costs of eating kosher are.  (By the way, I hear the same kind of complaints about the expense of eating ‘healthy’; everything that I’m writing here could easily be applied to that concern.)  In my opinion, the main concern is mostly meat and dairy products.  If you choose to eat lots of processed foods, that’s fine, but of course you’re going to spend a lot more money than if you cook from scratch.  In that case, it’s not eating kosher but eating processed foods that is costing you. 

What about poultry/meat costs?  Even when it comes to meats, you get to choose what you put in your shopping cart, and that determines how much you’ll end up spending.  There are always less expensive choices.  This week in our local kosher supermarket, there are turkey drumsticks and chicken wings on sale for .99 lb, which was a fraction of the price of anything else (I think chicken thighs for 2.69 lb was the cheapest thing I saw after that).  While every week there isn’t something this inexpensive, every week there are at least a couple of items that are significantly cheaper than usual (and wherever you may live, you probably have at least periodic sales).  Do you think if you found a way to regularly buy and cook only with the meats/poultry that are on sale that you’d save money?  (By the way, also as of today, the non-kosher chicken wings in a local store, also on sale, were 1.39 lb.  So it’s an inaccurate assumption to make that non-kosher meat is always less expensive.)   

Some of you will object that chicken isn’t meat, and meat is much more expensive.  You’re right, it is.  Again, you’re the one making the choices about what to buy, and whether you buy poultry or meat.  I spoke to a local kosher butcher recently to find out what cut of meat the chopped meat is ground from, and what he told me was interesting.  The least expensive chopped meat is made of the higher quality cuts of roasts that haven’t sold within a short time, which means there’s going to be practically no difference in flavor between the $18 lb roast and the cheapest ground beef.  The more expensive lean ground beef is made of neck meat, a tough cut of meat that isn’t good for much if it were sold on it’s own but people will pay more for because they think it’s healthier.  (Any kind of ground meat should be used within a day or two or immediately frozen after purchase.)   I like roast as much as the next person, but I can’t justify it as a necessity by any means, particularly for someone struggling with their food costs. 

You may insist that you have no way to lower these costs, but maybe you could take another look at what you’re eating, when you’re eating it, and how much you’re paying for it when you buy it.  You don’t have to have meat every night of the week, or even on Shabbos.  You could use a less expensive cut of meat.  Or you could use chicken.  Or you could use less per person, in stir fries or stews, instead of a large portion of protein per person.  There are lots of choices.  And you get to make them!

What about dairy?  If you eat only chalav yisroel, you’re going to be more limited, without question.  But again, you get to make the choices!  Buying when it’s on sale is critical in being able to enjoy ‘the good stuff’ without breaking your budget. Last week, I bought shredded cheese for 2.59/8 oz (and got enough to put some in the freezer for Pesach).  At the next store I went to, it was 5.99 for the same thing.   Instead of bemoaning how expensive it usually is, I wait until the price is right and stock up!  Also, I use cheese as an ingredient, not a main dish.  That means my kids don’t eat chunks of cheese with a meal, but enjoy it very much sprinkled on their pizza or into soup.   I take advantage of regular cottage/ricotta cheeses on sale (by the way, I don’t eat exclusively chalav yisroel), and again, buy alot when the price is good.  Since these things can be frozen, a limited refrigerator shelf life shouldn’t keep you from being able to take advantage of great sales and enjoy them on weeks when they are full price.   

Now, let’s be even more radical in thinking about dairy.  What about if instead of buying your milk at the store, you bought directly from the farmer?  That’s what I do, and I pay $2.50 per gallon (and if I watch the milking, then it’s chalav yisroel, too!).   I buy a lot once a month, and keep some in the fridge, the rest in the freezer.  Milk that is defrosted had the exact same flavor and consistency it had before it was frozen (except raw milk, but we’re not talking about that here). 

But you don’t live next to a farm, you say!  Neither do I.  Because the farmer I buy from lives quite a distance from me (almost two hours), I researched discount/bulk food shopping in that area, so that I can take advantage of being in the neighborhood when I get my milk.  I do a full day of shopping once a month, and the additional gas costs are more than offset by my savings. 

If you bought your own milk and felt cheese was really too pricey, you could decide not to eat cheese.  Or you could get a book from the library and learn about making your own cheeses, in which case a pound of cheese would cost you whatever you were paying for a gallon of milk.  I’m not suggesting that it’s for everyone, and if fact I still prefer buying my cheese to making it.  The point that I think it’s important to make is that there are many, many things we can do, if we want to, to get control of the supposed fixed costs of kosher food. 

At the risk of being totally redundant, I’ll say again that it comes down to evaluating the choices we make, looking at what our options are and what we can do, and being willing to either do something different, or stop complaining.  🙂    Happy shopping!

Avivah