Avivah Werner

Category: Intentional Spending

  • Today’s shopping outing

    Today I did my monthly shopping and I felt like sharing some of the blessing that has come my way during this outing – every time I do a major shopping I feel like H-shem (G-d) is sitting on my shoulder making sure to send me just what I need, and today was no exception.

    First I went to get free range eggs from a woman I discovered on Craig’s List several months ago.  She usually charges 1.50 a dozen, but I had seen an ad on CL for 1.25 at a time when she had lots to get rid of, so she agreed that’s the price she’d charge me.  Then a month ago they had so many, that she told me if I would buy them all they’d charge me $1 a dozen.  They told me it was worth it for them since: a) it saved them the time and effort of going to sell the eggs at an auction, where they’d also get $1 a dozen, and b) since from the beginning I’d offered to give them egg cartons that I recycled, it saved them having to buy them, so they’d actually make more profit selling to me than the auction, with much less aggravation.  We use a lot of eggs since they are a high quality protein from an ideal source, and at this price they’re very affordable to boot!

    Today she had 43 dozen for me, but I only had twenties and she didn’t have change for $60, so she told me to just pay $40 for all of them.  The last couple of times I went, they gave me a dozen ducks eggs free (they only have a couple of ducks and never used them for themselves, but when I mentioned I was interested in trying them just gave them to me!).  They’re very nice people who take great care of their animals, and today I asked her if she’d be interested in having our ducks.  I thought it would be a great home for the ducks and that this family would enjoy them as well, after her husband telling me last month that he bought a bunch of ducks and geese for no reason but because he likes seeing them run around the property.

    The kids (I took ds4, dd9, ds11, and dd13) enjoyed seeing the 8 week old puppies (and imploring me to take one home), cows, horses, ducks, geese, ducks, and chickens.  Picking up the eggs would have taken just a short time but we were there for 45 minutes, which was especially nice for ds4, who was very upset that he didn’t get to go to his grandparents with his three brothers (ages 1, 2.5, and 8 ) when we were out shopping.  So it was a personalized, hands-on kind of  ‘farm tour’ and added a lot more interest to his day out with us.

    Before I left, she offered me a 50 lb of potatoes for free.  Her husband had bought more than they could use at the auction and they were starting to sprout; she didn’t want them to go to waste but told me most people she knew wouldn’t be willing to consider produce that wasn’t perfect.  I told her that maybe I’d cut off the sprouting eyes to plant – I had a few potato plants that started from my compost pile and last week when I did some digging for the new raised beds accidentally discovered treasure -beautiful red and white potatoes growing right in my yard without any effort on my part!   Now planting those sprouted eyes seems like a worthwhile thing to do (though if I’ll get to it or not will depend on how much time I can find for it)!

    Then I went to the store, where I found some great deals!  Firstly, they were giving away tomato starts – I asked why, and they said most people had planted their gardens already and they wanted to clear things away.  I’ve never seen anything like this before.  Since I was so busy with the conference and the older kids’ high school graduation, plus building new raised beds just a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t do nearly the amount of planting from I wanted to earlier in the season, and a couple of days ago was thinking that I’d really lose out on the growing season this year.  And now I was sent about 180 free tomato plants to get me on track!  Yes, you read that number right! Good thing we like tomatoes.  🙂  I also got 3 eggplant starts and 2 peppers starts for $1.  Though it might have been too late for some people, the timing was perfect for me.

    Then I got 2 large watermelons for $3, 6 cases of Brown Cow yogurt (2.49 for 12 -1 serving flavored yogurts), and 25 dozen eggs (cage free, hormone free) for .89 each.  (I don’t like to buy all the eggs I need for a month from one person because then they’d have to save them up for me for a while and the eggs would be too old when I bought them.)  I got some other things, like 10 lb of baby limas for .49 lb, and canned tomatoes.  I also got a flat of marigolds ($3) to plant near my vegetables – they’re a natural and attractive insect repellent.  The yogurts will help to make mornings simpler – no one feels like cooking or eating much during summer mornings, and little yogurts like this are a treat.  I was so busy looking at the yogurts that I forgot to buy the organic canteloupe, honeydew, and blackberries that were really good prices.  But since they would have required fridge space I didn’t have, I think it was providential that I ‘happened’ to get distracted.

    I also got some delicious raw kombucha – I don’t know if the price was good or not since I’ve never bought it before, but I felt like I needed to have a little something, and when I saw this, knew it would be just the thing. And it really was.

    At the next store (only went to 2 today), I picked up my bulk order.  Today I got 30 lb. raisins, 30 lb pecan meal, 30 lb almond meal, and 2-50 lb bags of hard white wheat.  I couldn’t believe it when my dd told me last week that we were almost out of wheat!  Since November when I started reducing our grain intake, I haven’t replenished most of the grains that I had in the pantry, and didn’t really notice things running down – I used to always have plenty of wheat on hand. I’ve been using a lot more nut meals in baking, but I was aware of how fast I was going through those so there was no surprise factor.

    Usually I like to be sure my fridge and freezer are fairly empty before I go shopping, but despite my efforts for the last two weeks, nothing I did seemed to make a dent in what we had.  Part of that is that our side by side fridge that we got several months ago really isn’t space efficient (even though it’s several inches wider than our previous fridge), so no matter what I do it seems there’s not enough room for much more than some leftovers and a moderate amount of fruits/vegetables.  And the other thing is that my freezer is an ancient manual defrost model – I came home from the conference a week and a half ago to find the door half open, and a layer of ice over 5 inches thick encasing everything!  So I couldn’t easily get things out that I wanted to use and didn’t have time to hack away at the ice with a sledgehammer.  The freezer now seems a lot more full than it is, and until it gets a major defrosting, nothing more will fit in.

    So I was really limited by how much I could buy of perishables, but H-shem knew what I needed and didn’t send me the temptation of amazing prices on things I wouldn’t be able to store.   I did get a case of cream cheese (.59 for 8 oz, and there were 36 in the case, so 13 lb – it’s a very compact box) and several flats of 8 oz sour cream containers (.59 each), and two cases of blueberries (ie 24 pints – each case was $15). Blueberries and sour cream make a lovely lunch!  The only other thing I got that needed refrigeration were (3) 3 lb bags of broccoli for 1.99 each.

    My dh has been eating according to the GAPS diet for several months now, and one of his staples is butternut squash.  I was thinking this morning before I left that I wanted to be sure to look for things he could eat, and I was delighted to find 6 large butternut squash for 1.49 each, and then a lot more mid sized butternut squash priced at .50 each!   And something nice about winter squash like these is that they don’t require refrigeration, so they stay well stored in  box in the basement.  In this same store I bought brown rice in the bulk section for .57 lb – some of the bags were marked .59 lb, but if you can pay less by paying attention to what packages you buy, why pay even .02 more per pound for the same product?

    I also bought a huge turtle cheesecake for ds16’s upcoming birthday.  I was debating about if I should since I don’t exactly find the ingredient list to be healthful and we could easily make it from scratch, but his favorite dessert is cheesecake and I knew this would be something he’d appreciate on his birthday.  The cheesecake was almost 7 lb so there will be plenty for everyone, and the price was only 5.99.

    I always come home from these trips pretty tired – but so grateful for all the abundance that comes our way, at just the right times!

    Avivah

  • Free educational resources

    At the conference on Sunday I spoke on the topic of ‘Don’t Break the Bank! – Home Education on a Budget’.  I offered a number of suggestions for ways to save money on curriculum and extra curriculars.

    In addition to those ideas and principles that I shared then are the special offers that come around from time to time.  Here are some free educational resources that I’ve ordered in the last week, available only for educators (this includes home educating parents):

    History of US – free dvd set – my kids have really enjoyed the History of US books as well as the audio version that we’ve checked out from the library.  This hasn’t yet arrived but I anticipate that it will be a nice addition to our history studies.

    Journey to the Stars – free dvd – I just checked the site and it seems that the demand has been so high that they are temporarily not offering this. But you can still sign up to be notified when they do make it available for free again.  This also hasn’t yet arrived – I think the site said it would be mailed close to the start of the official school year.  I plan to use this to supplement science.

    Books by Ayn Rand – these are provided by the Ayn Rand Institute to educators who plan to teach these works to their students, and as such are suitable for students about 8th grade and up.  I read Atlas Shrugged a year ago and thought it was extremely thought provoking as well as being a very interesting story.  As an important and relevant side note, there was a thread running through the book of some physical relationships between characters that I don’t consider appropriate for my kids (or me) to read.  Though this might sound strange, I’m not sure how detailed it was since I immediately skip any sections that seem inappropriate and resume when the book seems to be back at the main storyline – I read very fast and I can scan a page at a glance so I can tell when something isn’t suitable without having to read every word.  I may skip too far at times but I don’t think I’ve ever missed out on the essential points of the story, and if it seems I went too far, I just go back a page at a time until I’m at the right place.  This is a book that I would like to do as a read aloud with my older children, thereby skipping over any questionable scenes while being able to discuss important points together.  I haven’t read her other works but plan to read Anthem next to see if it can be given to the kids to read independently.  The box with the three books I ordered arrived remarkably fast, within just a couple of days.

    Here’s a site that my kids enjoyed watching a couple of days ago: http://animatedtalmud.com/. The kids (even ds16) enjoyed it, and I’ll happily let them watch it another time to further integrate the information.

    Avivah

  • Ask a question, save some money!

    Now that our new privacy fence is up, I’d like to put up a good quality swing set for the kids.  On Monday evening we purchased a used one from someone on Craigs List who made his tools available to take it apart (and was really a pleasure to deal with).  But in order to put it back together at home, I needed to buy a new ratchet set, since the one we have is too small for the bolt sizes of the swing set.

    When I headed into Home Depot yesterday, I noticed that the packaging for the set I wanted was open, though all of the pieces were there.  So I asked an associate what the discount would be if I purchased it.  I was told I could get it for 20% off of the listed price since all of the pieces were there.  Whether that sounds significant or not, the fact is I would have discarded the packaging as soon as we got home, so I essentially earned several dollars for what would have gone directly into the garbage in any case.

    If you’re at a store and see something has been opened or damaged, ask a manager what discount you’ll receive if you purchase it.  Sometimes you’ll be told there’s no discount (the Walmart here stopped discounting opened packaging since apparently people were purposely opening items so they could claim it was damaged and get a discount 🙁 ), but often it will be worth the 20 seconds it takes you to ask the question.

    Along the same lines, when you’re buying something used, it’s often appropriate to make an offer that is below the listed price.  The swing set we went to look at was listed at $100, but I asked the seller if he was flexible on the price, and offered $80, which he immediately accepted.  $100 was the total amount I had allotted to purchasing a swing set, and I knew that I’d need to buy more supplies (new screws, some replacement boards), which would bring up the total price.  I also had seen similar swing sets listed for about $75, so my offer seemed to me to be reflective of fair market value.

    If you were to compare how these savings stack up if they would be based on an hourly rate, it helps put into perspective the savings value of just one question!  Of course, how much you save in each instance will differ, but in this case, $20 saved with a thirty second question equals $240 an hour.  Not bad, is it?!

    Avivah

  • “You’re not a member of the club”

    Yes, this is what I was recently told – and I considered it a compliment!

    I popped into our local kosher supermarket for some chicken and vegetables on Thursday evening.  I loaded up on turkey wings since they were .79 lb (that’s the kind of price I don’t often see!), and got a bunch of fresh vegetables for Shabbos salads (naturally the ones that were a good deal).  I was in the checkout line following a friend who said she needed to be more frugal and could use my tips, so I laughed and pointed to my stuff on the conveyor belt, and said: “Here’s my frugal tip of the day – buy lots of what’s cheap!”  😆

    The cashier heard us and then took a look at what I had, and started estimating out loud how much my order was before he even finished checking out my friend!  When he finished ringing up my order, he looked at the total and said, “That’s awesome!  It’s even less than I was guessing.  You’re not a member of the (name of store) club!”  So naturally I asked him what that meant.

    He said that he’s noticed that shoppers fall into four categories: those who spend a) $100, b) $300, c) $700, and d) $1000 (though he said this usually only happens around major Jewish holidays) for each shopping trip.  And since my full cart of food came out to less than $100, I’m not a member of the club.  Boo hoo.  🙂 I told him that I infrequently top $100 and only can spend $300 at a time in that store before Pesach (Passover) (since it includes my hand matzos)- which may be a total joke to some people, but that’s my notably big shopping trip there.

    Personally I was more interested in how frequently most people are shopping, because it’s less relevant how much you spend than each time than how long a time you’re buying for.   When I do my monthly shopping, I spend a lot, basically my entire month’s budget in a day less $50 – 100.  Even after shopping like this for so long, I still am taken aback when I come out of the stores and think about how much I just spent.  Someone could look at me and think I’m a big spender and someone spending just $50 look like the frugal person, but I’m shopping for 4 – 6 weeks of supplies and if the $50 person is a typical shopper, they’re back in the store 2 – 3 times a week.  And that would add up fast.

    In case you were wondering, the turkey wings can be useful in a number of ways – roasted as is, stewed, chopped for turkey salad and pot pies – and you can use the bones and carcasses as a base for your stock as a nice bonus.  They were very tasty for Shabbos lunch as turkey salad – I cooked a very large amount and then chopped it all into evenly diced pieces, then froze half so all I’ll need to do next week is defrost and add seasonings.  I actually enjoy cooking with inexpensive ingredients so much more than expensive ingredients – it’s like buying clothes at a thrift store – you’re just not as invested if something goes wrong, and when something goes right, you’ve gotten way more value than what you paid.

    Avivah

  • Our fence is going up!

    I’ve been living in this house for almost four years now, and seriously feeling the need for a fence for over two years.  But having a fence installed is very expensive – to enclose our yard would cost about $7000.  And two years ago my wonderful dh agreed to put one in because he loves me and knew how important it was to me, but it honestly was too big of a project for him to take on in his limited time, so it never got done.

    Finally this year I decided if I wanted a fence, I was going to have to spearhead the project myself.  So I did, but lest you think that means I did a lot of work, I’ll clarify- it means that my kids got on board with the idea and were very motivated to get one put in.  I did all the shopping and getting supplies from the store to home, and said what I wanted. They’re doing all the rest.

    Almost two weeks ago we rented a two person power auger to facilitate digging the post holes.  My dh started off doing it with ds16, but he was feeling under the weather so then dd15, dd13, and ds11 took turns with one another. They really enjoyed that!  Too bad our camera wasn’t working – it would have been a great picture!  Theoretically all of the holes we needed to have dug could have been dug in the 4 hour rental period.  But it required preparation which hadn’t been done and it took some time to figure out the auger, so a number of holes still had to be dug manually afterwards.

    Then a week later (when it was again dh’s day off of work), the kids started setting the posts in concrete.  I think dh did the first few with them, then they continued on their own in the afternoons when their academic work was done.  This week dd13 and ds16 have been hard at work digging the remaining holes with a manual post hole digger, then cementing in the poles.  It’s not only very physical work, but exacting to get things lined up exactly right, and they’ve done a great job.

    Today I went with a friend to pick up the fencing panels, but was told my credit card was declined when I tried to pay.  I was very surprised since I use only a small part of my available balance each month, and it’s always paid off in full on time, so I couldn’t even guess what the problem could be.  My friend offered to use her credit card to pay for the purchase, and after realizing that for Memorial Day weekend there was a 10% discount for military (which she is), I agreed!  (Turns out the card was declined because my company flagged it as a fraud alert – four hours later they called to tell me and said, “Are you still in the store?  If you’d like to complete your purchase now, you can go ahead.” :roll:)  So it worked out well that I couldn’t use my card since it saved me $75. 🙂

    So late this afternoon the supplies were all finally here and the fence started going up!  It’s really, really exciting to see it happening.  All the other work was preparatory, but now I can already begin to get a feeling of privacy when I’m outside – ahh!!  I love privacy!  I enjoy people, but I really like having my own clearly defined space.

    My kids are really hard workers and the bulk of the credit for this particular project goes to dd13 and ds16.  Right now (11 pm) there are thunderstorms, but assuming that they clear somewhat by tomorrow and it’s dry enough to work outside, they’re hoping the bulk of it will be up by Shabbos!

    (Of course, my frugal price analysis will come soon. :))

    Avivah

  • A frugal Mother’s Day gift

    I prepared a Mother’s Day gift that was so easy but so nice that I wanted to share it with you. And it was really frugal, too.  🙂

    I got this idea from Craig’s List – someone was advertising a window herb garden for Mother’s Day.  It occurred to me that I could make my own, and since my mother doesn’t have a yard and just a few days ago told me her attempt last year to grow microgreens failed, I think she’ll really appreciate it!

    I took a window garden box that I already had (we got this for free when the kids found someone had put out a pile of several brand new gardening items with tags still on for give away in the alley), and decided to fill it with four different herbs.  I didn’t think that I could fit more than that.  I dug up oregano, sage, and chives from my garden (the chives are flowering and look especially pretty right now).  I bought two lavender plants three weeks ago that I hadn’t yet put into my yard, and decided to put one in my mother’s herb garden – it’s not edible, but it smells so nice and looks attractive so it will be a pleasant addition.  I have basil seeds but since I wanted to give her plants that were already heartily growing, I didn’t include that.

    I planted it so that the tall and short plants were alternated – oregano, then sage, then chives, and then lavender.  All of these plants look attractive on their own, but together lined up in this way they visually enhance one another.  I prepared this several days in advance since plants that are transplanted sometimes experience stress and I wanted them to have a chance to get used to their new home and perk up before giving it to my mother.

    My only cost were the lavender and sage plants (since I had chives and oregano in the garden), which I paid .50 cents each for, and the Mother’s Day helium balloon ($1 at the dollar store) to tie onto the box itself to make it look more festive.  So $2 and less than a half hour spent to put it all together!  This is a nice gift for someone who enjoys plants but doesn’t have time, space, or energy to grow their own – all they need is a window with some sun, and they can continue to enjoy having fresh herbs for months!  (And these plants reseed themselves and will come back on their own next year.)

    (This post is part of Thrifty Thursday, Frugal Fridays and Make it From Scratch.)

    Avivah

  • Chicken Chickpea Chili

    Here’s a frugal and delicious new recipe ds10 made for us a couple of nights ago – this is a main dish recipe that serves ten.  (See cost breakdown below.)

    Chicken Chickpea Chili

    • 2 T. coconut oil or rendered chicken fat
    • 1 c. chopped onions, leek, or scallions (I used chives from my garden)
    • 3 cloves garlic, chopped
    • 2 t. cumin
    • 2 lb. ground chicken/turkey, cooked (can also use cubed soup chicken)
    • 1 lb dried chickpeas, cooked (soak these the night before or even further in advance if you want to sprout them – you can also use 4 cans of cooked chickpeas)
    • 6 c. chicken broth
    • 4 – 8 c. kale, chopped (optional – I have this in the garden right now but you can leave it out)
    • 2/3 c. barley (optional – if you leave this out you can either decrease the broth or enjoy this recipe as a hearty soup; I left it out)

    If your chickpeas aren’t cooked when you begin, put them up to boil while you prepare the rest of the dish.

    Saute the onions and garlic in oil for about 5 minutes, until translucent.  Stir in cumin, mixing in thoroughly.  Add chicken, chickpeas, broth, and kale.  Bring to a boil and cook until the barley is soft, if you’re using it.  Otherwise, cook until the kale is soft.

    This is a really quick recipe to put together if you have cooked chickpeas, broth, and cooked chicken on hand – which I did.  I prepared (ie soaked, sprouted, and cooked) the chickpeas in advance since I knew I’d be making this, had broth in the freezer, and had canned ground chicken in my pantry.

    My cost breakdown:

    1. organic scallions – free – from garden
    2. organic garlic – .10
    3. ground chicken – 1.29 lb x 2 (bought a lot on sale and canned it)
    4. dried chickpeas – .59 lb
    5. broth – free (made with turkey bones I got free)
    6. organic kale – free – from garden

    Total cost for our family of 11 – $3.27/.33 per person (which included more than one serving each) – as I’ve often said, eating well doesn’t have to cost a lot!

    (This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday and Fight Back Friday.)

    Avivah

  • Our free chicken coop

    I started incubating duck eggs on Thursday night, and I’ll put the chicken eggs in this coming Thursday night; that way all the eggs should hatch about the same time.  Then we’ll decide if we want to keep any of them, and which we’d keep (ie, the ducklings or chicks – still a good amount of debate about that and I think it will depend on what kind of ducklings hatch out).

    For quite some time I’ve been keeping an eye out for possible frugal housing options for them once they are hatched, assuming we decide to keep 3 or 4 for pets/eggs.  But one big thing holding me back was the limited time to put together some housing without spending much money on it.

    This morning, my ds11 came home and told me he saw that someone put out a sturdy wood dog house for free and thought it would be just the right size for a coop.  I took a walk with my dd13 to go look at it, and he was right – it was just right.  Big enough for the amount of birds we’re considering, but compact enough to not be a major presence in my yard.

    But dh had taken the van to work, and what would usually be a quick and easy jaunt to pick this up wasn’t.  It was HEAVY.  Dd and I started carrying it, but after just a couple of minutes, I sent her home to bring back reinforcements (ie the muscles of some other children :)).  Since ds16 was at shul (synagogue), dd15 was davening (praying), ds11 was at piano lessons – so the only muscle was from dd9 and ds7.  Not quite the muscle I was envisioning.

    But they did great and we got the doghouse home with a good amount of effort, laughing most of the way at how ridiculous we probably looked to people driving by.  We’ll have to make some adaptations to it – namely, to put in a perch for roosting, nesting boxes for egg laying, and to make the roof hinged so we can open it from the top easily for cleaning.  But the frame and size are good, and I think that’s doable. I also like that it doesn’t look like a chicken coop.

    Having this housing at least partially taken care of is one more thing that I don’t need to think about, and having it means that it’s looking a lot more likely that we’ll end up keeping some.  We still need to put a fence around our entire property – not a small project at all – but I have a new friend in the area who is enthusiastic about doing this as a team effort.  If she has anything to say about it, I’ll have a fence up before you know it, lol!

    I still have several weeks before anything will be hatching, and then it will be at least two more weeks before I’d think of transferring them outside – so about 5.5 weeks until I need to have everything in place.  So while it doesn’t feel very urgent, time has a way of going very, very fast, particularly when you’re busy with lots of other things (which I am).  I know that if I don’t think about this now, there’s no way we’ll be ready to deal with everything later on.

    Wasn’t that a great find?

    Avivah

  • Pesach 2010 food shopping list

    Every month I spend approximately $600 on groceries for our family of 11, and this month has been no different, including all extra Passover food expenses.   This year I’ve accomplished that by firstly spending about 50% less than usual last month, using up pantry items so I didn’t need to buy as much as usual, then using the extra $300 to buy matza, six cases of grape juice, and ground meat.  That split up the large expenses so that it didn’t need to come out of one month’s budget, and everything else was able to be purchased this month.

    You’ll notice when looking at my list that I don’t buy a lot of prepared or processed foods.  I did buy mayonnaise for Passover even though we usually make it from scratch – I don’t have a blender set aside for Passover use that I can make it with.  And though I was planning not to buy any sugar at all and to stick with honey (during the year I use sucanat and honey, no white sugar at all), my kids pleaded with me to buy some so that they can make our annual strawberry ice whip recipe.  Otherwise most of our groceries are ingredients in the unprocessed state.

    Since I bought the bulk of the groceries for the entire month, what I’ve bought is intended to last through the middle of April, not just the week of Passover.  (I have money remaining to buy more vegetables, once tomorrow and then again in two weeks.)  Here’s my list of basic ingredients, amounts, and prices I paid:

    • 70 lb chicken wings – .99 lb
    • 30 lb ground meat – 3.49 lb
    • 3 lb chicken cutlets – 3.79 lb
    • 3 lb fresh beef tongue – 12.59 lb
    • 20 lb raw beef liver – 2.99 lb
    • 6 lb shredded mozzarella cheese – $4.99 lb
    • 4- 8 oz farmer cheese – (rubbed out on receipt, I think it was something like 2.99 each)
    • 40 dozen pastured eggs – 24 dozen for 1.60 dozen/16 dozen for 1.25 dozen – from two different farmers (these were my lowest prices yet and I was quite pleased!)
    • 7 gallons raw milk
    • 100 lb potatoes – 9.95/50 lb
    • 80 lb yams – 13.50/40 lb
    • 50 lb onions – 30.50 (last month I paid $14 for 50 lb – when I asked why the big jump I was told the hurricane in Chile drove up a lot of produce prices)
    • 30 lb carrots – 2.99/5 lb (will need at least 50 lb more)
    • 3 pkg romaine hearts – 2.29 each
    • 1 case grapefruit (40 ct) – 15.50
    • 1 case navel oranges (88 ct) – 18.75
    • 20 lb clementines – 3.99/5 lb
    • 10 fresh pineapples – 1.29 each
    • 40 lb apples – .33 lb
    • 45 lb frozen berries – 2.49/3 lb
    • 4 lb fresh strawberries – 3 lb/$5
    • 18 lb. cabbage – .39 lb
    • 5 heads celery – .69 each
    • 8 heads cauliflower – .99 each
    • 3 calabaza squash – 1.49 each
    • 3.5 lb sliced baby portabello mushrooms – .69/8 oz
    • horseradish root – .80
    • 1 pkg garlic – .99
    • 10 lb cucumbers – .99 lb
    • 4 lb red peppers – 1.99 lb
    • extra virgin olive oil – 8.99 (3)
    • 1 small jar mayonnaise 3.19
    • honey – 5.29
    • 5 lb white sugar – 2.99
    • 1 container raisins – 3.65 (plus have 30 lb I bought six weeks ago)
    • 2 cans pickles – 1.39 each
    • 2 cans crushed pineapple – 1.29 each
    • 2 cans sliced green olives – 2.89 each
    • 2 cans sliced black olives – 2.89 each
    • 2 bottles lemon juice – 1.79 each
    • 1 small jar apple cider vinegar (this part of receipt is faded – was under $2, though)
    • 5 lb hand shmura matza – 16.99 lb
    • 1 lb hand shmura spelt matza – 25.99 lb
    • 3 lb organic spelt machine matza – 3.29 lb
    • 6 lb machine shmura matza – 5.99 lb
    • 1 lb matza farfel – left from last year, I think someone gave it to us
    • potato starch – .50 each (bought after Pesach last year)
    • matza meal – .50 each (bought after Pesach last year)
    • (4) 6 oz pkg ground walnuts – 1.99 each

    bulk purchases:

    • grape juice – 2.50 bottle (this was 50% off the regular price so I bought 48 bottles in order to have enough until the fall when it goes on sale again – I can’t bear paying full price!)
    • 25 lb sliced almonds – 102.67
    • 25 lb raw cashews – 67

    The quinoa I  ordered didn’t end up coming in, so I decided to do without it for Pesach – I just bought 25 lb last month and since when I got it, transferred it by pouring directly into a clean bag in a clean bucket (and it’s stayed closed since I haven’t yet used it),  I do have the option to use it for Passover.

    I didn’t buy any butter or extra virgin coconut oil because it’s so expensive; instead I’ve rendered a huge amount of beef fat for tallow (which I got free from a butcher – chicken fat is suddenly in demand this time of year and expensive but I guess using beef fat is beyond the pale, lol!) and will use that for most cooking during Passover.  I’ve used rendered beef fat and cooked with tallow before, but never tried to do without butter or coconut oil!  I’ll use olive oil for salads and to saute anything for dairy meals (though I generally avoid doing any cooking with olive oil since it isn’t heat stable).  We already baked mocha squares with the tallow and though my dd doing the baking was put off at the idea, it turned out great.

    Because my kids prefer chicken wings to any other kind of chicken and they’re so much cheaper than other cuts, it’s a very affordable protein option for us.  This month I decided that since I spent so little on chicken, and there was still room in the budget, that I could for once splurge on fresh beef tongue in honor of the holiday.  My kids love this but it is so outrageously expensive that I haven’t bought any for years. I used to buy it twice a year when I lived on the West Coast, since it would be marked down to about $4 lb after the holidays.  Then I’d put it in my freezer and have it on hand for the next holiday.  It’s hard to look at the very small amount that 3 lb of tongue ($42) makes, though – I’ll have to serve another main dish with it since that alone would be very skimpy!  But all of that notwithstanding, it will be special for the holiday and I know it will be appreciated.

    I still have about 3/4 case of napa cabbage (I bought two cases over a month ago for $7 each).    Despite my efforts to use it all quickly, forty huge heads of napa is a lot to use!  In order to keep it fresh, I wrapped each head of napa in a clean plastic bag, pressing out all the extra air before closing it well.  Now weeks later, they still are fresh and I’ll have plenty to use  in place of lettuce for salads, in addition to having it as a cooked vegetable.

    Tomorrow I’ll do another shopping trip for more fresh vegetables so we’ll be set for the week (we use a lot more of everything during Passover than during a regular week).   Dh wants to start drinking fresh vegetable juices, and fortunately our juicer has never been used (it’s been sitting around for over 2 years now :)) so we can use it for Passover.   For juicing I’ll need even more vegetables than usual.  I’ll probably get a 50 lb bag of carrots, and more cukes, beets, peppers, tomatoes, etc.

    What does your shopping list look like?

    Avivah

  • Bargain clothes shopping

    A couple of days I took a day trip with my oldest kids to do some shopping for apparel. Specifically the oldest three wanted to get shoes and the girls and I needed summer tops.  I had the great idea to take them to an outlet mall, where supposedly prices are much better than at the non-outlet stores for the same brands.  Before we got to the outlet mall, we passed a Goodwill in the neighborhood we were doing our food shopping, and decided to pop in to see if we could find anything suitable.

    Turns out all womens’ cotton knit tops were on sale that week at 2/$5, and the more expensive ones were 2/$10.  You had to have a discount card to get this price, but I figured it was worth $4.25 to buy discount card that I could use for a year – especially since we saved $24 on our first purchase as a result (after the cost of the discount card we saved $19.75).  That was a nice bit of fun shopping, since in addition to saving money on nice shirts (mostly name brand and all good quality – we got 16 tops and a few other items for $55) it saved us the time of having to go in and out of lots of other stores looking for clothes.

    Then we spent a long time in the outlet stores, and all of them were getting more tired and disappointed with the prices and selection as time went on.  I was so glad when my ds16 found a pair of nice shoes at Bass – they were $30 and had been marked down 75% (down from $119).  He was looking for something very specific and was pleased with his purchase; I was pleased that after all of our time in the stores, that someone finally found something they wanted!

    As we drove away, my dd13 said the prices were ‘kind of disappointing’.  I never thought about the situation I’ve created until then – my kids are used to having nice quality clothes, but they’re also used to my very low purchase prices (thanks to careful thrift store shopping, hitting seasonal sales at retail stores, and clothing exchanges with friends).  They aren’t used to spending top dollar for the kind of clothes they’re used to wearing, and they kept saying nothing they were looking at was worth the money.  One of them said, “Now I know why people think having kids is expensive – they must be dressing their kids from head to toe in stores like that!”

    Then as we were driving by just a few minutes later, I noticed another Goodwill and spontaneously asked the kids if they wanted to stop in there.  This Goodwill had something I’ve never seen around here (the Salvation Army in Seattle had something similar, though), a bargain room.  The bargain room (or whatever it was called) was a separate Goodwill store next to the regular Goodwill, where all clothes were put after they hadn’t sold for a given amount of time.  All the prices were low, low, low.  But it wasn’t nicely organized or arranged on racks – you had to hunt through things to find what you wanted. There was nothing wrong with the items themselves, though – I saw some clothing that still had the original retail tags on them.

    Within a minute of walking in, I found galoshes for ds16 – he had literally said five minutes before we walked in that he needs to get galoshes for his new shoes to protect them in rainy weather (since he walks back and forth to shul/synagogue daily, regardless of weather), and these were the perfect fit and style for the dress shoes he bought.  $1.50.  Then he found a really nice pair of shoes of leather shoes in great condition – another $1.50.  🙂  He wore them all day yesterday and said he can’t believe it, but he likes them as much or maybe even more than the new shoes he got at Bass, that he was VERY happy with.  (Ds has a very nice sense of style and somewhat expensive taste in clothing – which is why he wanted new shoes even though he had two excellent pairs of shoes that I bought him – the style wasn’t ‘just so’.)  Then he found a white dress shirt for .75 and a raincoat for $2.  You might expect that kids would rather shop for new clothes in retail stores because it’s supposedly ‘cooler’; it’s funny but after doing all the shopping we did at the outlets, all of them appreciated a thrift store like this much more!

    I’m not allowed to tell you what I bought for anyone else because I can’t embarrass my kids by telling you the amazing bargains we found.  😆  Actually, pretend I didn’t mention the above finds at the first Goodwill.  They don’t want their friends scrutinizing their clothes after hearing from their mothers who read this blog and wondering what we got at a thrift store and what we paid retail prices for.  You mothers who tell your kids what you read here should know that you’re seriously limiting my ability to write anything!! 😆 I told them that I highly doubted their friends would be put off that they got so many nice clothes at a fraction of what most of their peers would pay for the same thing, but whatever.

    I guess you can say my kids have officially recognized the value of thrift store shopping for themselves!  It was a fun day and nice to come home laden with our purchases.  Even shopping with fashion-conscious teens doesn’t have to break the bank!

    Avivah