Category: Homemaking

>>I started budgeting five years ago when I got on board Dave Ramsey’s program. It changed our lives and resulted in downsizing from 3200 sq. ft. to 1500 sq. ft.. This resulted in saving lots on our utility bills as well and no more gardeners and house cleaners:) One of the higher bills for us is orthodontics and tuition for the yeshiva student/limudei kodesh tutor for the hschooler. These are not really negotiable. I do have a somewhat generous “blow” fund as well for sheitels (cheap ones), slurpees and such.<<

Thank you for sharing your experience, Michelle.  I think people drastically underestimate the power of budgeting and getting their expenses under control to make a huge difference in their finances.  I love how you chose to downsize to a smaller home to make your budget work – housing is the main area in our budget that I very much want to adjust but haven’t yet found a way to do it.  I keep thinking about it, though! 

I hear alot of complaining about expenses, particularly at this time of year.  I don’t begrudge anyone the fun of complaining to a friend and getting some sympathy.  We all enjoy that occasionally.  But it’s the underlying attitude that I’d like to address. 

Too many people claim that most of their expenses are non negotiable (some, like tuition, really aren’t negotiable if you feel your kids need to be in private school), but most expenses have a lot of wiggle room.  Until a person recognizes that they’re making lifestyle choices that affect their spending, they’re going to see themselves as victims.  It’s a lot more prevalent for people to complain about the unrealistic standards of the communities they live in – the material expectations of what kind of simchas/events to host, what kind of vacations to take/clothes to buy, what kind of foods to serve both during the week and for Shabbos/holidays, even the temperature they keep their thermostat set at – than to take personal responsibility and recognize that they are making choices.  

When someone says “I can’t afford it”, “I don’t have time”, etc, they may be accurate.  (Or not. :))  But even if that’s true, it seems to me that one’s energy is better spent by looking at what they can to do change a situation than to bemoan their fate.   I think that asking “How can I make this situation better?” is a much better strategy to living a happy and productive life than saying, “I can’t do anything about it”.   Maybe we will find something we can do to improve our situation if we look hard enough.  (I’ve learned a tremendous amount over the years by being open to those who were successful in the areas I wanted to succeed in.)  It’s certainly a lot more empowering to focus on where our power lies than in where it doesn’t.

Avivah

I hope all of you had a wonderful Purim!  We had a great Purim, beginning with the megilla reading, followed by the Purim shpiel – it’s even more fun to watch when someone you love has been involved in putting it together.  I’m not a hammy kind of person, so it’s good for my kids to have my dh as a model of being comfortable being funny or out of character, in a good way. 

The next morning there was a forty minute window in the morning that was very hairy. Not very fun at all.  But that’s how life is –  you plan and think you have everything worked out, and then you get a major curve ball that forces you to reevaluate fast.  And sometimes you can’t change mental gears that fast. 

Since my dh took our only vehicle to work at noon, which I hadn’t initially been taking into consideration, we ended up having only 35 very rushed minutes to do our deliveries.  That was the part that wasn’t part of the plan and wasn’t fun, and usually this is my favorite part of Purim.  But we adapted and when we got home and he got off to work, I mentally resolved to be relaxed, enjoy the day, and shift out of that overly hectic and pressured head space.  The kids ended up doing a lot of deliveries on foot – we only had time to do the furthest deliveries by car – so they were pretty busy during the afternoon.  I stayed busy organizing and reorganizing all the various mishloach manos that came in (it’s a non stop effort clearing the table on Purim), as well as trying to keep the two little ones out of it – that wasn’t so easy!  I also had time for three long phone conversations with friends, and a couple of pleasant visits with other friends who stopped by.  It was nice to be able to slow down and enjoy connecting with others during the day.

The seuda was very nice, and was also different than what I planned.  About 1 pm, I decided to totally make a different meal plan, and to do dairy (we’ve never done that before).  It was pretty simple, but everyone enjoyed it – challah rolls, thick vegetable soup, homemade pizza (equal to about three or four pies), chevre (goat cheese), cottage cheese, roasted potatoes and yams with rosemary, and a big fresh salad.  And we put out orange juice and milk to drink, in addition to water.  For dessert we had banana chocolate chip cake, chocolate cake (both cakes were from shalach manos), and rice pudding.  It wasn’t traditional but it was definitely enjoyed by all!  I was able to put it together in the afternoon for the most part even without the kids being available to help (they did end up making the veggie soup and pizza later on), and do it without rushing, which is why I changed gears.  I realized plan A wasn’t going to work as planned. 

Today was a mellow kind of day.  I always think it’s good to take at least a day off to slowly get back into regular life.  The boys two days ago decided to totally rearrange their bedroom, which meant moving everything around.  And that meant that there was a lot of stuff that had been hiding under beds, behind the dresser, etc, that came to the forefront.  Yesterday ds15 took care of some of the big stuff, and this morning they all finished up together.  I reminded them that in a week they would have been cleaning for Pesach anyway, so they’re counting themselves fortunate to be able to kill two birds with one stone and get it done now.  It’s nice to know that one room is already done, and without me saying a single word of suggestion about it!  I wouldn’t have thought of the set up they did, but it looks great, is a better use of the space, and they’re happy with it. 

Then two of the girls decided they wanted to also totally shift their bedroom around, but I didn’t like their ideas, and suggested that they clean it thoroughly instead.  Nice of me, hmm??  Then ds15 and I went to the building reuse supply place, to buy some materials for him – he wants to do something to the inside of his closet.  I’m honestly not sure what he’s talking about – pulling everything out, covering parts of the inner closet walls with plywood, building sliding doors for the shelf at the top, and repainting it all in a lighter color – I really can’t picture what he’s describing.  But I bought the materials he said he wanted, and trust him to make it look good.  I guess you could say I’m giving him artistic license.  He’s earned it after past building projects in our house that he’s been involved with.

Then we popped into the thrift store on the way home, and got the youngest four boys shirts for Pesach, along with new sneakers for my older toddler and some Shabbos shoes in the next size up for him, and couple of very nice ties for ds15 (good thing he was along with me – that’s the one clothing item that I can’t buy without him, I just don’t have an intuitive sense of what kind of ties he likes).  I have a few new shirts still in the packages for ds15 and dh that I bought around Chanuka time, and the girls and I also did some shopping in the winter when there was a big going out of business sale of one of the modest clothes designers.  I bought the girls shoes a month or more ago, and they also cleaned out the bottom of their closet, as well as their very full shoe box, and discovered they had nice shoes that they had forgotten about.  I got ds15 and dh shoes last month, and ds10 and ds6 have shoes in good condition (though ds6 usually isn’t sure where both shoes are at the same time on any given Shabbos ), as well as Shabbos shoes the next size up in the attic.  So I think they should all be basically set for Pesach clothes at this point – I’ll check the boxes in the attic on Sunday and make sure that everyone has what they need.  You know how it is, there’s always someone growing out of what you thought would fit them!

My ds6 is challenging me to find clothes that fit him properly.  Like all of my kids, he’s tall for his age, but he’s also huskier than his older brothers.  So anything that fits in the waist is too long, and all the clothes I have in the box for his size are too tight.  I bought him three pairs of pants today, and count myself lucky that one of them fit him.  The others won’t go to waste – they’ll go into the attic boxes for the next boy to wear.  It’s great having so many kids, because it takes the pressure out of clothes shopping.  I don’t worry about getting something that doesn’t fit and wasting money, because I know it will end up fitting someone, eventually! 

I spent a little bit of time today making a schedule for Pesach cleaning – I refuse to clean anything for Pesach until the Sunday after Purim.  I won’t even think about it.  There’s a season for everything, and I like to really have Purim over with before moving on to preparing for the next yom tov.  I was feeling a little more time pressured than I usually do, because right before Purim I realized that after Purim, it’s just four weeks until Pesach, and I’m officially due three weeks after that.  That might not seem so close to you, but last time the baby was born three weeks early, and when a week ago my midwife gave me the list of supplies to get for the birth, and told me that she’ll be coming every two weeks instead of every month, suddenly it didn’t seem very far away at all.  It was almost unnerving.  Not only that, but most people around here still have no idea that I’m pregnant (well, they might be wondering a little, but no one is saying anything), unless I outright tell them!  

I always find it relaxing to make the schedule, because it gets all the things to do out of your head and onto paper, and then it leaves my head empty.  (That doesn’t sound right, does it? :))  Empty of the pressure of keeping track of all of those little details is what I mean.  And this time was no exception; the kids and I went over when everyone wants to turn over the kitchen (I don’t have very strong feelings about it, so I take into account their opinions on this – they’re a lot more motivated to be involved in the cleaning when the schedule is created according to their preferences), and it’s all down in my planner now.  Once it’s on the planner, the main work has practically been done.  Stephen Covey says the first creation is the mental creation, and that’s certainly true.

Then I did my next tiny bit of Pesach preparations, doing an inventory of the pantry for chometz to use up.  (Actually, my ten year old did this, but I did tell him to do it, so maybe I still get credit for doing it?)  That’s helpful because I don’t like to eat imbalanced meals (like pasta every single night) for the last week before Pesach just to use up the foods that would otherwise be thrown away.  We don’t have too much to use up, mostly eight boxes of spelt soup croutons and a few boxes of pasta.  And loads of oatmeal. 

So it was a nice relaxing day, and I’ll go to sleep in a few minutes feeling accomplished and ready to get back onto our regular homeschooling routine in the morning.

Avivah

I bet all of you are in the swing of Purim preparations by now!  Isn’t it fun?  I came home tonight to find my oldest two girls still awake.  One decided today she wasn’t happy with the costume she had planned, so she created something new.  She used a huge light brown suede shirt that we picked up when we got those free clothes I mentioned a week and a half ago, and cut it up and fringed it to make a Native American dress.  It looks really good!  I love seeing my children exercise creativity and initiative . 

My other dd was busy sewing costume props for my dh.  He’s writing the shul Purim shpiel this year – he did it a couple of years ago, and didn’t think he’d have time for it again when they asked him this year.  But after telling them ‘no’, he squeezed some time from here and there, and now my dd is sewing the props he wants for the shpiel.  He titled it, The Adventures of Super Jew and Bar Mitzva Boy, so most of what she’s making right now is a cape, and several two color logos that go on the chest (like the Superman S).  She’s also using the free clothing stuff we got off of Craig’s List to make them – a royal blue graduation gown and a red satin ladies shirt. 

The kids put their shalach manos together today, and my older dds baked the challahs for our family to send out.  I decided to send challah rolls with homemade hummous – I have to buy some small containers for the hummous in the morning.  We’ll bag the challahs tomorrow and put the hummous in the containers, so early Purim morning, all we’ll have to do is quickly assemble it in the baskets with cellophane.  (Including the basket and plastic container for hummous, the total cost for each one will be .75 or so, and it will make a nice looking shalach manos.)   I’d rather have it all assembled earlier than that, but practically speaking don’t have room for all the baskets in the fridge.  Since everything else will be done, it should work out fine.  

My dd14 is also decorating the house – it’s something she enjoys, and I’m happy to let her do it!  She stayed up late with me to wait for the challahs to finish baking, and used her time to hang a mobile that she made from the dining room light fixture.  She also got my dh to make a great poster (he’s the one with artistic talent, not me!) that she put up on our bulletin board.

Tomorrow night will end up being a late night, since we have the Purim shpiel after the megilla reading, and we always get home late.  The next day shouldn’t be too rushed, though, since my dh is working part of the day, and we won’t be having our seuda until 6 pm.  That will give us plenty of time to do all the deliveries (which are always a fun part of the day – we all go together and deliver to everyone’s friends.)  So far only one child has given me his list, and tomorrow the others will need to tell me who they’re giving to, so I can map out the master delivery route.

And don’t forget that Purim is a special day for davening (prayer)!  I’m going to actively plan out some time in advance to be sure that the day doesn’t go by without me taking advantage of this unique spiritual opportunity. 

I hope that all of you have a fun and meaningful Purim!

Avivah

PS – I won’t be posting my weekly menu this week, since we have so many leftovers from Shabbos, plus with Purim things will be different than usual.

I have to be honest – I don’t love using cloth diapers.  I know lots of moms do, and rave about how wonderful it is.  Yes, there are aspects I like about it, but if all things were equal (cost, environmental concern, health), there’s no question I’d rather use disposables.  But all things aren’t equal, so this is something I’m willing to do to be a good steward of the money that H-shem sends us. 

After posting about paper goods last week, I mentally niggled at myself to get back to cloth diapering since I have all the supplies and it was wasteful not to use them (I mentioned in that post that I haven’t been using cloth in the winter, for several reasons).  One of the general concerns I had was that I notice more of a tendency towards rashes when using cloth, and felt that in the winter it would be more of a problem. But on Thursday night, I stumbled on a comment online that gave me a clue as to what the problem was, so I decided that after Shabbos, I’d use cloth again.  My disposable diaper supplies obliged my mental ruminations by running out just in time.  🙂

Lots of moms find that the chemicals in disposable diapers are a problem, but even though I don’t like the idea of chemicals against sensitive areas of my baby’s body, they’ve never been visible irritants.  I have the opposite situation – they get rashes from the moisture of the cloth.  I’ve tried to change them frequently to avoid them sitting in a wet diaper, which has worked, but this has led to its own problems – I was changing diapers very often (felt like all the time, actually) and creating lots of laundry. 

Now I’ve learned that the problem is cotton holds moisture against the skin, so you need to use a barrier that will wick the wetness away.  If I had realized this was the crux of the issue, I could have addressed it a long time ago, but I thought I was doing something wrong, and didn’t consider it was just the material.  You live and you learn.  Apparently, what can do is place a fleece liner between the cotton diaper and the baby, so that moisture goes through to the cotton, which holds it in, but the fleece doesn’t hold moisture, so the layer next to the skin stays dry.  This also has the advantage of solids not sticking to it as much as cotton, so disposal of messier diapers is much simpler. 

So I thought I’d give it a try. On Friday, I decided to make some fleece liners, but you don’t think I was about to run out and buy material for this, do you?!  You should know me better by now!   Anyway, saying I was going to make them sounds like a lot more work than what was actually involved.  Here’s what I used for fabric, and what I did.  As I explained in my last post, we had an opportunity to get a lot of clothing for free the night before, and one of the items my dd12 picked out was a nice pair of athletic pants for her older brother to wear when he plays basketball at the gym.  The only thing was, she didn’t check the size – they looked big, so she figured they’d fit him.  When we got home, we saw how very big they were – size 3x! -so I put it into a give away bag to pass along to Goodwill.  But later that night I read about the fleece solution, and so the next morning I went through the clothing I had set aside to give away to see if there was anything to use.  I looked at the pants and thought the outside material would make a good diaper cover (that nylon/waterproof kind of sports pants, you know?) for a future repurposing project, but then discovered the inside was fleece lined.  So I cut up the pants lining (there was a LOT of material!) into strips of material that fit the length and width needed, and that’s what I’m using for the diaper liners now.  Fleece doesn’t need any hemming or sewing, so all that was involved was cutting it out into rectangles.

I’ve only been doing this a couple of days, but so far it’s working well.  My 18 month old woke up from his naps with his bottom dry and with no signs of irritation, though the diaper was pretty wet.   Actually, when I started using cloth again, he had a little bit of a rash, but it’s disappeared!  I’m very glad to have found such a simple and easy solution to this.  

Now, to find a solution to the nightime soaking for my toddler, and I’ll be totally set!

Avivah

Since it was requested that I share what we’ve done in the past when sending mishloach  manos on Purim, here you go!

First of all, I don’t do themes.  I don’t write cute, funny, or inspired poetry.  I just try to send something that fulfills the mitzva, that people will appreciate getting.  What I’ve enjoyed receiving the most are practical and useable foods, so that’s what I try to send.  I know most people send a lot of treat foods, so I feel that by sending something a bit different, it offers a balance.  Of course cakes are always nice, but Purim is a very busy day, and it’s nice to receive something early on that you could sit down and eat right away if you wanted.  At the end of Purim, there are so many cakes, cookies, and candies around that something that is more substantial always seems to be appreciated.  When I’ve sent store bought foods, I’ve also tried to keep it practical. 

Here are some things I remember sending: challah with vegetable soup; chicken soup with matza balls; challah with homemade marmalade; canned salmon and small bottle of grape juice; box of crackers and butter; box of tacos, can of beans, bottle of taco sauce; chocolate cake or banana bread with a fruit/juice.  We often add in smaller items, like a small bag of hamataschen, nuts, or something similar, but that’s not the main thing.  Sometimes I’ve chosen not to send homemade foods, because some people aren’t comfortable receiving them, and since most homemade goods end up piled together, some people will throw away all the homemade foods they receive at the end of the day.  That’s not where I want what I send to end up.  

Something that I’ve had to remember is people who only eat chalav yisroel or yoshon.  The yoshon aspect limits home baked goods to them, and I don’t know everyone’s personal standards when it comes to this.  It’s not a great feeling to give someone something, and have them hand back the items they can’t or won’t use!  Fortunately, I can only think of two people over the years that we’ve given to who this has been an issue for.   If I’m sending something dairy, like last year (butter), I make alternative packages for those who I think keep chalav yisroel. 

I keep the expenses for each one to a maximum of $2, which I think is very reasonable, considering that to add your name to a Purim card and joint mishloach manos costs $3 around here.   That includes the packaging costs.  Obviously what I send depends on what I can buy or make for that price. 

As far as packaging, I’m always a little torn between it looking nicer and keeping it simple.  My kids recently informed me that they were embarrassed that last year it didn’t look so nice – we gave a large box of whole wheat crackers, with a 8 oz. rectangular bar of butter taped on, wrapped all around with ribbons.  I thought using cellophane would be too much but the kids thought it looked too simple.  (In the same conversation, they also said they were uncomfortable because their personal m.m. looked too nice last year.  Yes, I was rolling my eyes. :))  My challenge isn’t the cost, but is balancing wanting to send something to someone that they’ll enjoy and feel good about, but not sending something that could leave someone feeling inadequate that what they’re giving you is too little.  (This is why yesterday I chose not to buy Pesach cake mixes to send to people, even though they were inexpensive.)  Purim should be a day of good feeling and not competition.

We usually buy inexpensive baskets, and wrap everything up in cellophane.  I generally pay 25 cents for each basket (I’ve bought them the last few years at a nut store that sells their overstock from their x-mas gift baskets), and have used sturdy plastic bowls or plates when I didn’t get the baskets.  I buy a large roll of cellophane from the store, which is enough for all of what we send (that’s about $6).  I have ribbon from years ago when I bought a bunch of rolls at a thrift store for a very small amount of money.  This past summer, someone cleaned out their basement, gave my kids a bunch of toys, and included some brand new rolls of cellophane – that will come in handy this year.  🙂  Then I put a simple Purim sticker on top with our name and the name of the family we’re sending to.

This year, dh was at the store where the baskets were, and picked them up for me.  He called to ask which ones to buy – there were three kinds, and one was especially beautiful, though they were all the same price.  I told him not to get the nicest one – there’s no way anyone would think it was inexpensive, and I don’t want to be deceptive in sending something that fancy.  Also, it was substantially bigger than the others, and I’d have to fill it!  So he got only one, to send to our rabbi. 

I hope this clarifies – if there’s something that I haven’t touched on that you’d like me to respond to, please ask!

Avivah

Today I had a thirty minute conversation with someone I became friendly with several years ago through a public speaking group.  He called to interest me in a multi-level marketing product he has recently gotten involved in, which sells a bundled package of services ‘to save you money’ for a monthly fee. 

Now, I’ll be upfront and say I don’t generally like MLM.  I don’t like when every friend and aquaintance becomes targeted as a possible income stream.  But because I wanted to be fair, I listened to all he had to say.  I looked at the website he recommended.  And finally he wanted to know what I thought.  So I told him. 

I told him that it seemed to me that it was all based on convincing people they would save money by spending money on services they would probably never need.  I pointed out that most of the services that were being bundled couldn’t save people money unless they increased their spending.  I said that I felt it wouldn’t be fair to give people the message that they need to look to the experts (ie, the companies offering these services) to take care of them when what they needed was to take responsibility for themselves as much as they could. 

He insisted that people would save money.  So I went through several of the services that he specifically mentioned and said how I thought they could be better dealt with for much less money.  Insurance for identity theft – eliminate or reduce credit card usage, monitor your bank and credit card statement regularly, learn about strategies to protect your identity.  Discounts for dental services – focus on preventative dental care to minimize need for expensive dental work, go to a dental college when services are needed.  Discounts for eye exams and glasses – go to an online website like zennioptical for inexpensive glasses.  Debt consolidation – go to the library, get a book on getting out of debt, and make a plan.   

He said very few people are going to do that, that people’s time is worth more money than what they’d be spending (I actually have a post that is half written on exactly that argument, waiting for me to find time to finish it).  Well, he may be right that people aren’t going to rush out and start reading books and educating themselves, though I think that’s a skeptical and limited view of human nature.  But I told him that it’s learning to do exactly that which would help people improve their lives financially, and I’d rather spend my time empowering people and dealing with the root of the issue than tell them that spending on something is the answer. 

Then he told me I’d be helping people to have a better life, since they would make money on every referral they signed up, and asked why I think making money is bad (which I never said but think must be one of the lines they teach you to use on people when the conversation isn’t going well for you).  I responded that I don’t have a problem with making money, if it’s something you believe in and you’re offering a legitimate service, but that I don’t believe in turning every single activity into an income stream (which is why my blog doesn’t have any ads or monetizing elements built into it, despite repeated suggestions by others to add them).  He said if I could make money on it, what’s wrong with that?  I said that we all do things for money, and there are things we do for pleasure, and for me, helping people save money is something I do for pleasure.  And I pointed out that he himself has this experience of not charging for every valuable service he offered, as he didn’t charge his daughter every time he watched his granddaughter!

I didn’t mean to be a tough customer, but participating in something like this doesn’t align with my values.  He didn’t really agree with me, which is okay, so we agreed to disagree, and left it at that!

Avivah