Avivah Werner

Category: Intentional Spending

  • The Nutcracker

    Tonight I took my three daughters (8, 12, 14) out to see a performance of the Nutcracker.  I’ve taken them three times in the past, but it’s been almost three years since I took them.  In the past, I took them to the same performance, year after year, so when this opportunity came up, I decided it would be nice to go to something similar but different.  We had to rush out after Shabbos, but managed to get there basically in time to meet the group we were going with (we got a school rate for the tickets by joining together with other homeschoolers, so each ticket was $5 instead of $15.)

    We’ve been to this theater a couple of other times for other dance productions, and this time decided to see what it was like sitting in the balcony.  I think the seats are good wherever in the theater you sit, but this was a different vantage point that we enjoyed.  Tonight’s ballet was performed by a different dance company than the one we watched in the past, and I was really surprised by what a huge difference it makes in how the scenes are organized.  I kind of assumed that the story and music are basically the same, so how much different could it be?  I was sooo wrong.  Because I’ve seen the other dance company perform it three times, I kept expecting certain scenes at certain times, and it wasn’t happening!  It was fascinating to see how differently the music was interpreted and what very different scenes were conceived based on the same basic story outline.  Coming home, we were listening to an instrumental piece on the radio, and I suggested my girls imagine making up a story and then a dance to go with that music, matching the movements and actions to the music, and then think how much more was involved in such a large scale production.  It made them even more appreciative of the talent and hard work that went into it.

    I couldn’t help comparing the two productions, and though this was supposedly on a higher level, and definitely had a tremendous amount of talent, we all agreed that we preferred the performances we’ve seen in the past.  I don’t know if that’s fair to this dance company, because that one is familiar and is the standard that everything else is held up to, but even though we all know it may be unfair to say we like that one better, we do.  🙂  It was a nice girls night out for us all.

    Have you ever heard the music for The Nutcracker, by Tchaikovsky?  I enjoy classical music, even though I’m not very knowledgeable about it, and I especially enjoy when a piece I recognize comes on (there aren’t many of those!).  When the Nutcracker comes on the classical radio station, it’s a special treat.  My kids also recognize it right away, and will describe what scene the music goes to.  Six years ago, before I first took the kids to see it performed, we borrowed the music recording from the library and listened to it repeatedly, and we also checked out books on the plot.  That was very helpful in preparing all of us to appreciate the performance.

    Two weeks ago, three of my older kids were asked to be ushers for a classical concert that was a local fundraiser, and were able to stay for the entire performance for free because they volunteered.  They enjoyed it, but they found it hard to sit for so long and listen to music being played without hearing any lyrics, even while appreciating the amazing talent of the pianist.  A couple of those kids at the end of November went to a dress rehearsal of our city’s symphony orchestra (a special opportunity for school groups), so this rounds out some of the high level music appreciation opportunities they’ve had recently and is simultaneously expanding their familiarity with classical music.

    Avivah

  • Is saving $ on your food bill time consuming?

    I often hear/read comments to those who are frugal in general areas, about how unrealistic and time consuming it must be.  I want to address that as it applies specifically to food planning.  After all, saving on your food bill generally means cooking from scratch, shopping carefully, and planning ahead, so obviously only a tiny percentage of the population could ever find time for that!  After all, the rest of us actually have a life!

     I think the amount of time that people estimate has to be spent in the kitchen is significantly over estimated. And in fact, cooking from scratch doesn’t need to take much longer than buying ready made food, particularly when you take into account the time savings of planning ahead (for example, it keeps you from running in and out of the stores several times a week).

    I’m a busy mom with eight kids ranging from 1-15 years old, all of whom are home all day.  That means I need to homeschool everyone while taking care of a one and two year old, run my business, have time to spend with my husband and kids in a relaxed way, and have personal time as well as time for my friends, in addition to serving three meals a day! How in the world could I keep our budget to $600 a month for our family of ten (I’m not yet used to the sound of such a  high monthly amount, since I raised it by $100 recently :)) if it meant hours every day in the kitchen?!? 

    No, cooking from scratch and shopping with an eye for bargains definitely doesn’t take nearly as much time as you might think.  I probably spend less time shopping than the majority of people – I take one day a month and buy everything, with another hour thrown in later in the month to restock the veggies.  The main factor involved in cooking from scratch is: planning ahead.

    For example, dried beans have a reputation for being time consuming and unrealistic to make at home.  But dried beans actually take less than five minutes of hands on time.  That’s hardly longer than the time it would take to open a couple of cans of beans!  Here’s what you do: first you soak them overnight – fill a pot with water, and dump in the beans – less than one minute.  Once they’re soaked, put fresh water in the pot and put them on the fire – another minute. Cooking them takes a while, but once you’ve turned the fire on, there’s no other energy involved except being home and turning the fire off when they’re done.  That can be done when you get home from a long day of work, and they can be turned off before you go to bed – in other words, anyone could find time to do this.  It doesn’t take any more time to do a large amount than a small amount, and if you do a big potful, you can bag them into portion size amounts, and put them in your freezer. 

    What about breakfast?  Hot cereals take just a few minutes to prepare.  And if you soak your oatmeal, for example, the night before, then you can further cut down cooking time, and in the morning all you need to do is heat it up and it’s ready to eat – five minutes, max.  And that means even a large amount for a big family – it could take almost that long to pour bowls of cold cereal and milk for everyone!  Mixing up a batch of muffins for breakfast or baked oatmeal takes more time, but even this takes only about fifteen minutes, can easily be doubled or quadrupled (so your time and energy are maximized, and you have future batches to pull out of the freezer for your own fast food), and can be mixed up the night before.  The next morning, just pop it into the oven when you get up, and by the time everyone is dressed and at the table, pull out a fresh batch of muffins or a breakfast loaf.  Scrambled eggs are another quick dish.  French toast, pancakes, and waffles can all be made ahead and frozen, though I like to make them fresh, usually on Sundays, when our schedules are less full. 

    What about dinners?  There are lots of kinds of dishes to make, but I keep it simple.  I enjoy cooking, but I enjoy relaxing over a good picture book with my toddler or reading a chapter book to my middle kids more, so that’s where I’d rather spend my time.  Baked potatoes, pasta, and rice make for quick and easy side dishes, and you can quickly teach your kids how to make these.  There are so many possible dishes that I can’t really even start to list ideas here, but I already mentioned that we do a lot of stew-type meals in the winter – throw a bunch of compatible ingredients together and heat.  🙂  Tonight I defrosted some chili, mixed it with cooked beans in the fridge, and heated them together.  We had tacos with the chili mix and brown rice for our main dish, with some carrot kugel on the side – again, not much  hands on time spent, but a tasty and filling dinner. 

    Now I know that some families expect something much more elaborate than that, but frugality isn’t only about saving money.  The time I have is limited and of value to me, and I spend it as such.  I won’t make three different meals to accomodate picky eaters – which is probably why none of our kids have ever been picky eaters, and I won’t make a three course meal every night.  My goal is tasty, nutritious food that nourishes everyone, eaten together in a relaxing environment where we can talk, share, and connect.  Life is all about making choices, and fancy foods aren’t going to enhance my goals, so that’s one decision made. 

    Remember, most of the time it takes to prepare food is spent not in preparing it, but in actually baking or cooking it, but that’s a passive process that doesn’t involve any of your energy.  Once you organize your prep time, you’ll find you can get a lot done in much less time than you might have previously expected.

    There are things that I do that take more time than this, like canning or dehydrating.  I’m not going to try to convince you that doing it will save you time.  I don’t do those things to save time, I do them to save money and for the convenience of having it there when I need it.  That includes situations as simple and common as when I’m out all day and didn’t think to pull something out of the freezer to defrost early enough, to the less likely scenario of losing power and the food in my freezer being spoiled.  But these aren’t necessary to keep your food bill low by any means – I didn’t start canning or dehydrating until this year, and my food budget has been very low for many, many years.  In some ways, I’ve probably added to my food costs by doing this, because I buy more than what I need for the month in order to preserve some for later on. 

    Avivah

  • Watch where your money is going!

    I’ve periodically told my kids that’s it’s important to pay attention when you go shopping, and since I’ve had several instances this past week that came up, I thought I’d share this thought with you.

    Don’t assume that whatever you’re charged is what you’re supposed to be charged.  Sale items don’t always ring up as such, and some stores have a policy that if you’re mischarged for an item, they’ll give you the item for free. But even without that policy, pay attention when you’re checking out in the grocery that everything has scanned properly.  The thrift store I’ve shopped in for years has a new computer system, one that makes it almost impossible to see if you’re being charge correctly when you check out, as the discounted price doesn’t show up on the screen.  It took me fifteen minutes after I got home to figure it out last week (I couldn’t work it out in the store, it was way too complicated), and it had six errors on it.  Fortunately, the mistakes evened out – I was overcharged for some things, undercharged for one, and not charged at all for another – so I didn’t need to go back.  By the way, I feel that if there’s an error of any sort, even not in your favor, that it should be corrected.  A number of times I’ve gone to customer service (this happened again last week at the grocery store for a 9.95 charge) when an item wasn’t on my bill after checking out that should have been, and asked them to ring up the missing item so that I could pay for it.  Spending your money responsibly is important, but being ethical is even more important, and I don’t believe there are any true savings on dishonestly aquired money or things. 

    Last week I noticed that I was credited only $14.50 for a rebate I submitted online to my drugstore, instead of $20.  When I saw that and realized I had thrown away my receipt, I didn’t think I’d have much luck getting the full rebate (since I couldn’t ‘prove’ what I paid), but I called anyway to ask about it.  They didn’t ask for my receipt (because they were charging the same amount on this across the country in conjunction with the rebate, so they knew what I said I paid was true), told me it was a processing error, and refunded the $5.50 immediately (and since I had it put on my store gift card, I received another 10% on top of that!).  So it took me less than five minutes to ‘earn’ $6. 

    Several days ago I called my phone company to remove one of the additional services I have for my line, after seeing that we really don’t use it and the extra cost isn’t being justified.  While I was on the phone, the customer service rep told me that they would take the monthly charge of $5.50 for that feature off, but would also lower my monthly total bill by another $10.99 (it’s a special they’re giving to those who call to make changes, it seems, not advertised), increase my internet connection speed, and otherwise keep all the same features.  I’ll get this price for another year, before it will shift back to the regular price I’m paying.  I was on the phone for a few minutes, and that will save us $16.50 every month (not including the tax on that) – it may not seem like a lot of money, but we’ll have over $240 more in our pockets in the course of a year than if I hadn’t made the call.

    Today I was expecting a delivery that I paid extra for in order to get it quickly.  Though the company emailed to say it would be here today, it never showed up.  I called the company (and waited on the line for at least ten minutes until I got a rep – I browsed the internet and checked my emails while I waited), and was told that it wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.  I told them that the email they sent said it would be here today, and offered to forward it to the rep so he could see for himself.  No need, he assured me.  The full amount for the rush shipping (over $38) was refunded to my credit card while I was still on the line.  Was it worth the time?  I thought so…

    Though I usually try to pay a little extra on the mortgage every month, I’ve never been able to do more than that.  Our mortgage is a significant portion of our take home pay, but after two years, for the first time last month I was able to make an extra month’s payment.  When I paid it, I clearly labelled it ‘additional principal’.  Imagine my surprise when my mortgage statement came a couple of weeks later, and said that this month’s bill was paid, but the principal wasn’t decreased at all!  They had applied my principal payment towards the coming month’s payment (meaning mostly interest).  I called the bank to straighten this out, and had a chance to practice being patient as the representative repeatedly told me that I had paid my mortgage payment for this month so I didn’t need to send in anything else until next month.  Finally she looked at the records and agreed that I did make an extra payment, but because it wasn’t labelled as intended to go towards principal, they automatically apply it in a way that benefits them (she didn’t use those words to explain it :)), and told me that I was at fault for not making a note of it.  I told her it had been labelled (and since I pay online, it would be very, very easy to show proof of this), and she quickly apologized for their error and took care of properly crediting it to our future principal.  This would be fun to figure out how much we saved by following up with the bank, as it saved us another 28 years of interest at 6.5% – I can’t figure that out in my head, with all the amortization rates, but I’m sure it’s significant.

    None of these are earthshaking or exciting, but little things add up, and it all comes from paying attention to the details.  I see this as a matter of being a good steward of the money that we have – I gladly pay what I need to for the services or goods we buy, but it’s senseless to spend unnecessarily for no additional benefit!

    Avivah

  • It’s the season for soup!

    I get lazy about making menu plans in the winter time, because it’s so easy to throw together a soup or stew, which is especially enjoyed by everyone in the cold weather.  Since a large pot of soup takes hardly any more time than a small pot, I end up with easily enough for two meals, and I don’t need to cook as frequently as I do in the summer (in the summer, no one in my family finds hot dishes like this appetizing).  That’s why I haven’t been posting my menus lately – our leftovers from the weekend turn into ingredients for the meals of the week, and the leftovers from one night’s soup often end up as part of a different stew the next night.  It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s super frugal, and it keeps my fridge from becoming buried in little piles of small containers of miscellaneous food that eventually grow fur! 🙂 

    Here was tonight’s quick dinner, which was actually not based on leftovers, for the most part – toasted pitas and thick vegetable soup.  I always buy a large amount of frozen vegetables in the beginning of my monthly shopping, since I saw that running low on veggies was my biggest challenge to shopping monthly (with one trip after two weeks to replenish the vegetables), so this keeps me from running out when the month is coming to an end.  Frozen vegetables were the backbone of my soup tonight because they were fast and the only labor involved was opening the box.  Which is nice on a lazy day, and when it’s not sunny out, I feel lazy.  🙂 

    I make up most of my recipes, so I don’t have exact measurements.  I often use chicken stock as the base for my soups and stews; it adds a rich flavor and valuable nutrients, but didn’t do that tonight.  I started by sauteeing a couple of onions and some cloves of garlic (my daughter feels like this is a waste of time and that I should just chop them up and throw them in to boil with everything else), then added 2 boxes (10 oz each) of lima beans, 2 boxes of peas and carrots, a 32 oz bag of corn, a large can of tomato sauce, leftover green bean/tomatoes dish from the fridge, and a bunch of zucchini (the amounts I add are kind of arbitrary – it’s basically whatever I feel like, with whatever I want to use up).  If I hadn’t had the green bean/tomato dish, I would have added 2 boxes of green beans, and two more cans of tomatoes, diced or whole.  I added some water, but I like to keep it thick, so I didn’t add too much.  I tossed in some spices – garlic powder, salt, pepper, parsley (sorry, I really just pour in whatever looks right to me, so I have no measurements on this), let it simmer for a while, and then serve.  I made a large pot (I think it’s twelve quarts) full, for under $5 – that fed all ten of us amply. I have about a third of a pot left, which we’ll have for tomorrow’s lunch.

    If you want to bulk this up, you can add barley, rice, or diced potatoes.  In our family, four of us don’t eat bread, so in place of the pita there was also a pot of fresh cooked rice for whoever wanted it.

    Avivah 

  • Shopping fun

    Today is Black Friday, a major shopping day, but you won’t find me in any stores!  I don’t particularly enjoy shopping in retail stores (unless their prices are extremely low), and shopping in crowded retail stores ranks way up there with getting a tooth pulled as far as things I’d choose to do for fun.  But lots of people seem to enjoy it and if you’re one of them, I hope you find/found lots of bargains!

    Yesterday I did some ‘shopping’ that was more in the line of things I enjoy.  Someone was moving and had some items that they didn’t want to take to their new home, though everything was in great shape.  It’s so fun to get things that are useful for our family, and know that the person giving them away is happy to have them go to a good home.  The woman I got the items from told me that she really doesn’t want to throw the things away, but she’s moving today and can’t take more time to find people who can use these things, so they’d be going into the garbage if someone hadn’t claimed them by last night.

    So what did I get?  

    • A beautiful solid wood rocking airplane, the perfect size for a toddler to play on – I’m going to give it to my baby and toddler for Chanuka; we kept it in the van until he took a nap and then snuck it up to the attic (it’s big enough to be hard to hide). 
    • a new looking good quality floral apron – that will go to one of my daughters for Chanuka (I got one of them a nice one last year, and though they all have functional aprons – read, solid colors – it’s nice to have something pretty and functional!)
    • Two sets of oven mitts (my kids suggested I buy some just last week when we were in the store, since I don’t have any); one set will be for dairy, one for meat.
    • Lots of good quality hangers, including skirt hangers, coat hangers, and suit hangers – and one tie hanger- this will help the kids use their closet space more efficiently, and we’ll get rid of any cheap wire hangers that have been in there until now.  And the solid wood coat hangers will support some of the heavy winter coats well.
    • A large bag of spices and canned foods
    • Two lucite canisters for storage items, one new in the box
    • Gauze pads, alcohol, bandaids (I have hardly any first aid items in my house and am glad to add something to the little I have)
    • Two large bottles of mouthwash, one hardly used, the other new
    • A gilt frame picture that looks great in my bathroom and replaced something else that was too overpowering (I didn’t realize how overpowering until I took it down and replaced it with this)
    • Matching cup and toothbrush holder for my bathroom – cream and gold, and together with the above picture have added a classier look to the bathroom
    • Three beautiful oil paintings for my living room – all gold frames, one large one and two smaller matching ones.  My living room walls have been bare except for one picture (which I took down today) since we moved here over two years ago.  I wasn’t sure how they’d look, but the colors in the paintings matched my couches, and the price was right to take the chance so I brought them home with me.  🙂  The pictures we used to have didn’t match the couches we got when we moved here, which is why the walls have been basically empty, but these look SO nice! 
    • An old cookbook of nutritious recipes – I’ll look through it and get some ideas.
    • A wire strainer that will be perfect for straining curds when making cheese
    • A shaitel head and pins

     And while I was there, she mentioned in passing that she was selling her toaster and food processor, and was I interested?  I have absolutely no use for a toaster that holds two slices of bread, since we toast panfuls of bread at a time!  But since my food processor blade broke recently (do you get a sense I’ve been on a roll with kitchen appliances breaking?! – and I didn’t tell you that a couple of days ago, the glass lid broke on the electric cooker I use every single day!), I’ve been limited in the vegetable dishes I’ve been making because the shredding is too time intensive without it and a food processor was very high on my list of wants.  I didn’t want to spend the money for a new one, but couldn’t buy a used one for kashrus reasons, and a food processor is something I use all the time, so though I’m reluctant to call it a need, it really is a huge help for me.  After three or four weeks of doing without it, I finally told my daughter on Wednesday night that we’d have to take out the Pesach food processor and use that, and just deal with getting a new one for Pesach when the time came.  My daughter really didn’t like that idea – somehow, if it’s been designated for Pesach, that makes it special and she didn’t want me to do it.  But what do you know?  The very next morning, before I took out the Pesach one, H-shem sent me to the home of someone giving these things away, who ‘happened’ to mention she had just what I needed for sale, a hardly used kosher food processor for just $20! Don’t you just love how everything ‘happens to happen’?

    This was my kind of shopping fun!  

    Avivah

  • What to do with mushrooms on sale?

    A few days ago I was in the vegetable store, and saw mushrooms on sale for $1 a pound.  I don’t know if that’s cheap where you live, but around here, that’s a pretty good deal, so I got a bunch of them.

    But you know how mushrooms are – they’re very perishable.  And if they’re on sale, it’s because they’re not at the top of the freshness line.  If you keep them in the bag you bought them in, they get slimy and you end up throwing away all of them, and if you take them out, they shrivel up and dry.  So you really need a plan to deal with them when you buy them.

    Here’s what I did:  as much as I enjoy fresh mushrooms in salad, I wouldn’t need many for that, and what I would use them most would be in cooked dishes.  I chopped up several cloves of garlic, a couple of onions, and sauteed them together.  Then I added all of the mushrooms (I chopped them up first), and added it to the onions and garlic. When they were all nice and soft, I turned them off. 

    This mixture is a perfect addition to soups, pilafs, and casseroles.  I put them into the small bags, sized according to what I think I’ll use it for.  Then they go into the freezer.  Anytime I want a nice addition to my meal, I can just pop them out of the freezer and into the pot.  And today, since some was still in the fridge, I got to use them to make a delicious vegetable dish for Thanksgiving. 

    Avivah

  • Gift cards for the holidays

    I’ll admit it, I’m not a big fan of gift cards.  I feel like they force you to spend your money in a store that you might not otherwise shop in, paying prices you might not otherwise pay.  I’d personally rather have the cash to spend where and how I like – and I can always get alot more if given the money than the person could have bought or I could get at the chosen store.  We were given a generous gift after our last baby was born, and I really wanted a new set of dishes.  But the store we were given the card to had very expensive dishes, and not the kind I wanted.  I ended up getting dishes, but not what I really wanted, and certainly not for the money spent. 

    But my post isn’t about telling you to give cash this holiday season – it’s to warn you to be careful about giving gift cards so that your recipients won’t lose out.  A number of large retailers are set to close down very soon, most of them by January 2009.  If you are given a gift card, spend it right away!  And if you really want to give a gift card, give one from somewhere that isn’t as at risk – the kind of stores that come to mind are Walmart and Target, Home Depot (though they are planning to close fifteen stores, they’ll still be around).

    Avivah

  • Foods to stock up on in November

    If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that a key to keeping my food budget low is stocking my pantry when prices are low.  That way, I have a wide variety of ingredients that I bought cheaply to use for your menu planning. 

    November is always the month to stock up on ingredients for baking -flour, sugars, canned milk, etc.  Turkeys are often also cheap, though if you  keep kosher, you probably won’t find any super buys this month – if you do, please share them with me!  I don’t use most of the typical baking ingredients, since we don’t use white flour or white sugar, but what I will be buying this month is canned goods.

    Canned goods are not traditionally cheap during this time of year, but due to a variety of factors involving the US and Chinese economies, they will be cheaper than usual for a short period of time – I don’t think it’s probable that it will last for more than a few more weeks. 

    I look through the flyers of all the local supermarkets each week, and for the last few months have been appalled at the absolute lack of anything that I would call a bargain.  I used to stock up on loss leaders, but I haven’t found even the loss leaders worth buying.  But this week, I’ve seen canned goods on sale in every local major supermarket, and every one of the sales is worth going into the store for. 

    A friend told me she doesn’t use many canned goods, and couldn’t see the point in getting any.  I don’t use many canned foods either.  But they can be stored long term (so it doesn’t matter if you don’t use them quickly), are great to have in a pinch, and anything I use a little of is worth getting a lot more of if I can get it cheaply and find space for it (like when I got canned pumpkin in the 29 oz cans for 15 cents each a few weeks after Thanksgiving – at that amazing price, can you see why I got enough to last over a year, even after making pumpkin loaves and muffins for breakfast on a weekly basis?! :)).  Canned veggies substitute well for fresh when you’re out of them, they don’t need refrigeration or freezer space, and canned fish is a cheap source of protein.  Personally, I don’t eat canned corn or peas, because sugar is added, but I would use it for a stew or casserole ingredient for my family after rinsing it.  Green beans are fine.  And canned tomatoes in all forms (whole, diced, pureed, sauce, crushed) come in very handy – I usually buy at least twenty large (28 oz, I think) cans at a time and that holds me over from one shopping trip to the next.  I can my own beans because it’s more economical, but buying canned beans is still a cheap source of protein.  Canned fruit is a nice addition to salads; I use mostly pineapple in its own juice and some mandarin orange segments, and occasionally get cranberry sauce as a side dish for Shabbos when I can buy it cheaply enough. 

    Canned goods will be getting more expensive in December on the wholesale level because of Chinese steel costs going up (in case you don’t understand the relevance, a large percentage of US canned foods are packaged in China), and I wouldn’t expect it to take much longer to trickle down to the retail market.  Scrap metal was a hot item all summer – a number of times people knocked at our back door to ask if they could take something metal they saw in our yard, something that had never happened before, and suddenly there was a sudden drop a month or so ago – these little things that happen in our backyards are reflective of much larger economic forces at work, and this all will be affecting the prices of our food supply soon. 

    And look at it like this – if you buy canned goods at a 25% discount and in two months they are even the same price as they are usually right now, you’ve still made at least a  25% profit, right?  So it’s a good way to invest your food budget dollars to buy ahead and lock in your investment! 🙂

     I was out today getting the canned goods I wanted, and though I usually try not to look in other people’s carts (though everyone who passes me seems to look at mine, and then take a second look as they’re passing, lol!), today I was curious if in light of the economic challenges so many are facing, if it would be reflected to any degree in how people were food shopping.  Particularly, I was interested if anyone but me was buying more than a couple of cans of veggies (name brands all at 50% off or more), or anything suitable for long term storage.  Nope, not at all – not in one of the three supermarkets I went to.   Lots of ice cream, sodas, single yogurts, though.  Sigh. And so many people say that food is so expensive and they can’t afford to buy more than enough for three days at a time…..

    Also, as of December 15, 2009, I was told by the owner of a salvage store that I go to, olive oil will be going up 15%.  So if olive oil is something you use, buy some extra now.  (I use very little regular vegetable oil because it’s horrible health-wise, and extra virgin olive oil is one of the alternatives I use, so I bought several large bottles last month.)

    Shop smart, shop cheap, and shop ahead – you’ll always come out ahead!

    Avivah

  • Repurposing a dress

    Today my daughter was wearing the dress that I remade for her a couple of days ago, and it looked so nice on her that I thought I should share what I did with you. 

    So many times clothing have a little something wrong with them, but it seems to be a big enough thing to get rid of it.  Sometimes it just takes a little bit of thinking and creativity to change it into something appealing and wearable.  This particular dress was given to us – it was a high quality jumper for dressy wear, with a filmy solid colored layer entirely covering the jumper.  You could see the jumper pattern through the filmy layer, but it was the filminess that seemed to give it an elegant look.

    But I really didn’t like the filmy layer, no matter how elegant it was supposed to make the jumper look – it didn’t seem like a practical addition to the dress of a young girl.  Because it was such thin material, it easily ripped and the seams kept separating – when I resewed them, they just separated again after wearing it once or twice.  The second time or third my daughter brought it to me to fix, I told her that I had something different in mind for it.  I put it aside until a couple of days ago, and here’s what I did.

    I totally removed the filmy layer – I was anticipating this would be a time intensive job; since all of the layers were sewn together, I thought it would mean unstitching and restitching all of the seams of the dress.  Before I did that, I tried to rip the layer cleanly along the edge, to see how it looked.  Amazingly, it looked fine, after I removed all loose threads along the seams, so I kept on going until I had ripped it all off.  That took just a few minutes.  After that, I was left with a plain black and white jumper – well made, but not dressy. 

    But when I ripped off the filmy layer, I noticed that there were some embroidered shapes along the bottom side of the dress, which because they were almost folded in half didn’t draw any attention to them.  I removed those, and found that they were beautiful black and white embroidered butterflies.  I attached one in the middle of each jumper strap at an angle, so that each tilted towards the other.  Then I took the remaining four and sewed them across the upper middle half of the jumper, evenly spaced.   Because I sewed them so that all four sides of the butterfly were held back against the fabric, they added a really nice look to the jumper (whereas before they were almost messy, since they were attached in the middle and folded into itself), so it’s again a dress appropriate for Shabbos (Sabbath).

    When my 8 year old dd wore this today, my normally observant son and husband both thought it was a new dress.  I told them I remade it from a dress she recently wore, but even with hints, neither of them could figure it out.  It looks totally different, and looks a lot nicer now than it did when it was new!  The repairs probably took a total of twenty minutes, and it was something I was able to do while supervising the kids with their chores and academic work in the morning, so it didn’t take me away from what I would have usually been doing.

    Avivah

  • Saving money with clothes storage

    Okay, I said I’d tell you how using clothing storage strategies effectively means saving a lot of money.  First of all, if you have more than one child, it’s a big savings to be able to pass along all the items in good condition to the next child.  (I only save clothes that are in nice shape, and I also try to buy good quality clothing that looks good after repeated washings.  The low quality clothes aren’t worth buying, new or used, in my opinion; they look terrible after just a few washings.)  If you didn’t have a system to pack them away, even if you kept them, you’d end up shopping for new stuff when you needed it, because you wouldn’t be able to find what you needed when you needed it!  Believe it or not, plenty of people give away clothes that are in good condition and then buy new clothes for the next child, rather than have to find a way to store the clothes.   

    In case you’re wondering, my children do each get new (to them!) clothing, in addition to whatever is passed from one to another.  But they don’t mind hand me downs; in fact, they enjoy knowing they’re wearing something that an older brother or sister wore when they were their age.  They care more about looking nice than if the item comes to them with the tags on it or not. 

    I do the vast majority of my clothes shopping at thrift stores.  However, I try not to shop only when I need something.   You might recognize this principle from my description of food shopping – I buy when the price is right and stock up then, not when I decide I must have something right then.  This is where I think the big savings in clothing shopping is; buying when prices are low and then putting them away for when you need them. 

    When I’m shopping, I keep an eye out for any clothes that fit my criteria – well made, tasteful, and classic.  I generally buy fairly classic styles; I don’t care for super trendy clothes that look dated six months after they are purchased.  Classic styles look great even five or ten years later.  If I see something that I like, I buy it, even if I don’t have someone that it fits right now, especially if it’s half price that week.:) 

     Last week I popped into a thrift store where I donate our clothes; I don’t usually shop there.  Since I had to take the clothes in, I did a quick browse through the store – that took about five minutes.  I saw a new pair of Bass leather loafers ($8 after a 20% coupon I had in my purse), but in a size 7.5 and my son is right now only a 6.  And also a pair of sneakers the size of my ds15, who I just bought new shoes for last week.  So what?  The nature of thrift store shopping is that you can’t assume something you want will be there when you want it.  If it’s good stuff, I don’t pass it up.  Ds9 will have good shoes in a year or so (assuming they fit him – my kids all have standard sized feet, which makes this easier, but if it doesn’t fit, no harm done – it goes back into the box to wait for someone else), and I have a backup pair of sneakers for the inevitable time when my ds15 suddenly tells me his current ones are ruined. (I’ve learned from experience that with my boys, I don’t get warning that their shoes are on the brink of destruction – it happens fast!).  I save lots of time by buying what I like when I find it, and then pack it into the appropriate boxes in the attic. 

    When a new season comes, I don’t start off by taking my kids to the store.  We shop in the attic!  They go up and pull out the boxes in the appropriate sizes.  Remember, I’ve been stocking throughout the year, so it’s not like it’s a bunch of hand me downs waiting that no one wants to see; they actually look forward to it.  My shoe selection for the boys is pretty good (that includes sneakers, dress shoes, boots, some sandals and slippers); for the girls it’s weaker because of the frequent style changes, so I don’t buy as far ahead for their shoes.  If there’s still anything they need after they’ve gone through the boxes, then I’ll shop with their specific needs in mind.  It isn’t usually something very urgent, because generally there’s enough of everything for them to get by pretty comfortably.  This year, though, my almost 14 year old has told me she really needs a black shirt to go with a couple of dressy outfits.  She and the 12 year old share some clothes, but the 12 year old likes to wear her black shirt most of the same days her older sister would want it!   Next week, there will be a clearance sale at a local fashion shop, and I’ll stop in there.  Someone told me in the past that their clearance prices are great, if you can find something you like in your size.  If I don’t see something there, I’ll move on to the thrift store.   What is the thrift store doesn’t have something?  Well, I’ve never reached the point that I couldn’t find something (except shoes) and then I had to buy brand new, so I don’t know what the next step would be. 

    By the way, girls are more challenging than boys, since the styles change more quickly (as I said with the shoes), and they all have different ideas of what they like.  For the older ages, I don’t store many clothes for the long term except for pajamas, bathing suits, robes, thermals, very basic skirts, turtlenecks.  The fashions change too fast and in the four years between my 12 and 8 year olds, many of the things that look great now will look dated then.  But those same items can be easily stored from my dd14 to my dd12, because the fashion shift won’t be dramatic or pronounced enough to matter, generally speaking.  So for the girls, I’m not usually shopping more than two years ahead.  And the truth is, because we have five boys, I’m not usually shopping more than a couple of years ahead for them either, because there’s always someone growing into or out of a size!

    In addition to clothes I buy, I also am able to benefit from clothes that are periodically passed on to me by others (mostly one good friend), though I’ve gotten items free from CL for my little kids a couple of times.  It honestly does take effort to go through what comes and organize it all, and there are times I’d really rather not have to deal with it, but the payoff is that I have to spend very little to dress my entire family.  When holidays come, I don’t have the sudden pressure of having to buy new clothes for everyone in addition to all of the other holiday expenses.

    Effectively being able to organize the clothes you buy at a discount or get for free, and have them ready when you need them makes a huge difference to how much you’ll need to spend to keep your children appropriately dressed.

    Avivah