Avivah Werner

Category: Intentional Spending

  • DIY renovations progressing

    We’re busy with some remodeling now. We want to finish our attic and put in a bathroom, and make the remaining space into two small rooms. We decided to be our own contractors and just hire out the plumbing and electric work, and do everything else ourselves so we could stay within a very modest budget and still do a major upgrade to the house. We’ve done some preparatory work, primarily demolishing a wall, creating a new doorway, and building a new wall through the master bedroom in order to create a separate entrance to the attic. I didn’t want people going through one of the bedrooms that is being used by our family every time they came in to do work, which is why I wanted to do this first.

    (In case you’re wondering, no, I didn’t know how to do all of this stuff before I started. But the library has great books, and I checked out a bunch of them and read and read until I started to understand some of the things I was reading. I started by putting in a kitchenette in the basement for my mom, with my ds13 as my working buddy. That turned out well, so we were empowered to go onto the above described new attic entrance. And so it continues…)

    Finally, we are up to the bathroom itself. Dh framed most of the bathroom so the plumber could do the rough-in, and the plumber spent the last couple of days here doing that. He’ll be back on Sunday to finish putting in the water lines. He is a terrific plumber, and I have a lot of confidence in him. Unfortunately, with all the noise in the house, my baby has not been able to nap at all. So the last couple of days have been hard on him, and everyone else, too, since he spends most of the day needing to be held and very out of sorts.

    Ds13 has been a huge help to dh in doing the framing, and was a big help to me yesterday. Dh didn’t totally complete the framing, though most of it is done. He left some things undone that he felt could wait until after the rough ins. Well, ds was watching the plumber, and came down to tell me it was going to be a problem to complete the framing after the pipes were in, and took me upstairs to show me what he meant. He was right – the pipes were being put in differently than dh had expected, so there was going to be a major problem if it weren’t addressed right away. I asked him if he thought he could complete the necessary framing, since dh wouldn’t be home in time; it needed to be done right away. I felt very fortunate that ds knew what to do, though I quite honestly get very nervous about him using a power saw – even though I sat there and watched him cut every board. Something about the sound of it, or just the thought of it, I don’t know, but I get really nervous about power saws.

    Today the electricians came to do the electrical rough-in. Let me tell you, I’m much less thrilled with the electricians than I am with the plumber. When the electrician first came to give an estimate, I was quite impressed by him. The problem is that he sends out plumbers he hires to do the work, but they have nowhere near his experience. It never occurred to me to ask about that when we spoke about all the things I wanted done. After clearing my schedule for the morning, they arrived three hours late (and when I clear my schedule, it’s not just a manner of speaking – I literally had to postpone a bunch of things). Then they didn’t know what work they were supposed to do. Then they told me they would need to reopen the ceilings, after I already repaired the holes from the prior work they did – “Oh, we didn’t realize we would need those holes to stay open.” Then after less than 2 hours, they decided to leave for the day because they had a question and I had gone out for ten minutes to drop off my son at his tutor. They said it will take at least three days (and based on their past work, which was all part of this same contract, I’m wondering how many days more it will take them to actually get it done right). They plan to be here 7:30 in the morning to get started again. The only good thing I could say about the day was that thanks to their delay, I was able to put the baby in for two naps before they arrived, and because they left so soon, he was able to sleep right after they left. And that’s no small thing to be grateful for. We all really appreciated the difference between him today and yesterday – everyone had fun with him again! He really is a very happy natured baby, and I hate seeing him so miserable.

    I finally got to the end of the day (after coming home with all of the kids very late from a lovely family party we were invited to), and thought I would post something here. But Blogger has updated something and I couldn’t get into my account. I kept at it until finally I was able to log in, and honestly, I just felt lucky that it finally happened. I really dislike these system wide upgrades that mean everyone has to re-register, nothing works the way it’s supposed to, etc. Have you ever noticed how these things never happen when you are feeling energetic and eager to face some challenges? LOL . Life on life’s terms, as the saying goes. 🙂

    Avivah

  • Making cloth diapers

    Remember how I told you we recovered our dining room chairs using the fabric from a set of drapes we were given? The drapes were a super quality, and were flannel lined, so there were actually three layers of fabric. After finishing the reupholstering, we were left with a bunch of white flannel, and I started thinking about what I could use the material for. It just seemed like such a waste to throw it away.

    Around this time, I found that I needed more cloth diapers. I had given about four dozen prefolds away before this baby was using them, and kept just two dozen of the best ones. When I started using cloth for him, I kept feeling I should have a bunch more diapers than I did, when I finally remembered my decluttering and the earlier decision to get rid of two thirds of my stash.

    So I thought I could take advantage of my surplus of free white flannel, and turn them into cloth diapers for him instead of buying more. I was considering making fitteds (which means they have elastic around the legs and back, and Velcro straps that close around the front), but didn’t feel the extra bit of effort was worth it – after all, I would have to use wraps over them (which have the elastic and Velcro) to keep them waterproof. So I decided instead to make contours, which are shaped diapers that fit into a wrap.

    It’s really amazing what a wonderful source of information the web can be, and I easily found sewing instructions for what I needed. Well, maybe not exactly what I needed, but close enough that I got the idea and just adapted it. I cut the flannel in an hourglass shape (using the wrap as a sizing guide so it would fit inside it), with one layer for the outside and one for the inside, and then made a soaker pad to run down the middle of it for absorbency. For the soaker pad, I used layers of flannel scraps and pieces from one old towel I decided to donate to the cause. I sewed the soaker pad together, then sewed in onto the inside of one layer, then put the second layer on so the soaker was sandwiched between them. If it sounds complicated, it’s really not. The first contour took a bit of time to figure out how it should all go together, but the subsequent ones were much faster. Things also went faster after that since my two older dds saw what I was doing and thought it looked like fun. So one sewed all the soaker pads together, and the other sewed the soaker pads in – I cut more flannel shapes out while they worked, and then did the final layer.

    All in all, I’m really satisfied with how they turned out. Dh said how professional they look (though I think that was generous of him). The flannel is a softer material for the baby to have next to his skin than the cotton of the prefold, and they are much, much less bulky, so I think he’s more comfortable (not that he was complaining before, but I know I would be!). They are also simpler to use, since you just stick them in the wrap as they are, with no folding necessary. (That’s nice since five of my kids change the baby and if it’s easier for them, then they don’t mind doing it as much.) Even though they are less bulky, they are much more absorbent. The baby used to get soaked through if I wouldn’t be careful about changing him after a couple of hours went by – it was one of the things I thought was just normal about having a baby wearing cloth diapers. And after the entire night, forget about it – even with a double prefold, he was always soaked. We haven’t had that problem since a week and a half ago, when we started using the new contours – so that has meant I’ve had less laundry to do, which I certainly am not complaining about!

    We made about a dozen so far, with enough flannel to do lots more when I’m in the mood. It was fun finding a way to use our available resources to get what we wanted. And it is so great for the kids to see, once again, that there’s a way to create by yourself the things that you want to have – it’s really empowering. Before I sew any more, though, I have a couple of other sewing projects that my kids have asked me to make for them, so I won’t be making more cloth dipes until those things are done. I started one of those projects last week and spent some more time on it tonight, and will update you on that sometime soon!

    Avivah

  • More on grocery savings

    What place does processed food have in my budget?

    When I do buy processed food, it’s only when it’s much cheaper to buy it than it would be to make it. An example would be the tacos I buy at a salvage store I stop by from time to time – I stock up when I see them priced at 8 boxes for a dollar (12.5 cents each). I certainly wouldn’t consider buying them on sale at the supermarket for $1.89 a box. It’s little things like this, here and there, that add up and sink a budget. It’s hard for me to think of many other processed foods that I regularly buy, except for canned veggies (lots of tomatoes and canned pumpkin).

    Buying in Bulk
    I also buy lots of foods in bulk, like grains (wheat, oats, dried corn, millet, rice, buckwheat) and coconut oil (as you saw in my recent post!). I buy 50 lb of potatoes for under $6; since the place I buy them is an hour and a half from my home, I buy 150 lb at a time (since it’s cool now, I don’t have a problem with them staying fresh – I don’t buy this many when it’s hot, only 50-100 lb at a time then). Most people don’t feel buying in bulk is practical do to for a smaller family, but if you get together with another friend or two and split it up, it means big savings for all of you! (And if you can find some extra storage places in your house – under the beds, even – you don’t need to split it up with friends to enjoy the bargains.)

    I buy family packs of ground beef when they are on sale; the sale prices I have found locally aren’t very impressive, so I stock up at $2 a lb. I use the meat more as a condiment than a main dish, as a stir fry, in a stew, casserole, etc. It gives everything a great flavor, but I don’t need to use more than 1 – 2 pounds a meal.

    I don’t buy beans in bulk – surprisingly, they cost more at all of the bulk sources I’ve priced out than they do at the supermarket. Several weeks ago a bunch of kinds of beans went on sale at a local supermarket for .51 a pound, so I bought 50 lb, five – ten pounds of each kind. That will keep my pantry stocked for a while.

    Stock up on loss leaders
    I keep my eyes on the specials the stores are running; I check the flyers and don’t make a trip there unless they have something I want. There are a number of items that the stores will offer at great prices, at an actual loss to themselves, to lure you in. Since most people don’t buy just the loss leaders, it’s a profitable strategy for the stores. But I just stock up on what’s on sale – for example, I just noticed that salmon is on sale this week for $1 a can. That’s the price I’ve been waiting for, and I will probably buy about 30 cans (I know I don’t need to buy more than that because the sales are cyclical and this price will come around again). This means even at the regular overpriced supermarket, I regularly have huge savings.

    Don’t tell yourself, “We don’t have prices like that where I live.” I’ve given you some examples of how and what I buy, but it’s taken me time to find these deals. Remember that every locale has it’s own bargains; some things will be more expensive, some things will be less. Some people live in rural areas where farm produce is very cheap, but they need to drive a lot further to a large store than someone living in the heart of a city. Almost 5 years I lived in a city in a totally different part of the country – there I found a source for ground meat at 99 cents a pound, as well as salmon steaks for 99 cents a pound. Amazing, right? Right – those are things that cost a lot more where I am now. But there are plenty of bargains in my area, too – it just takes persistence in finding them. For example, I found a bakery outlet where I can get 3 loaves of bread for 99 cents, the same loaves that are $2 – $3 in the grocery stores. (Though I don’t like to buy bread often anymore because bakery bread is much lower quality than what I can make, even the whole grain loaves.)

    Remember that it takes effort and persistence to find cheap food sources. Don’t worry about doing it all at once; pick one area to work on at a time. Ask other people who seem to be budget conscious for their best tips for shopping, and their favorite stores to frequent. Over time, you will find that you can significantly realize big savings in your food bill.

    Avivah

  • Saving money on groceries

    Since so many moms are trying to cut costs in order to live on one income and stay home with their kids, I felt it would be appropriate to share some tips for how to cut your grocery bill. This is an area where most people can realize huge savings without compromising the quality of their lives.

    Your budget will probably be very different from mine, unless you also have a big family, but the principles behind saving on your grocery bill are the same. I shop and cook for a family of 9, plus guests and my mother on most weekends. Our monthly food bill is about $450, and has been about that for the last year. This is less than half of what most families our size spend. (Before I started buying farm fresh milk and eggs, it was reliably $400 monthly, but adding these into our diets has pushed up the costs.) So you won’t need to spend that much since you won’t need as much food as us. 🙂

    I’ve heard the complaint that to be healthy, you need to spend a lot of money. And sometimes, it does seem like that. Yes, there are lots of costly options, but there are also lots of affordable options. And affordable options don’t mean that we have to limit ourselves to oatmeal everyday for breakfast, and beans and rice for all other meals to stay within a budget.

    Since there are so many things to share, I’m going to spread out my points into separate posts to keep this easy to read for you! Firstly, as I said in my post about menu planning, I make almost everything from scratch. Not only is it cheaper, it’s lots tastier and healthier to boot. Many moms will insist that it takes them time they don’t have and they are willing to pay for the convenience. I think we too often underestimate how much we spend for conveniences to save ourselves time, and overestimate how much time it would take to make something from scratch.

    Today I took a son out for pizza (he redeemed one of his coupons from the holidays) and he commented how much money people waste on eating out. I explained to him that there’s a benefit to eating out, and the more someone else does to your food, the more expensive it gets. The example I gave him was pizza: we make our own pizza, which means we make the dough, the sauce, and then we sprinkle the cheese on. That’s the cheapest option (and my kids think it’s also the yummiest – and they like that they can eat much more than I would let them buy if we went out!). The next option would be to buy a ready made pizza crust and pizza sauce, slightly more expensive still would be the frozen prepared pizza, and most expensive is fresh pizza at the pizza shop. Is there a huge qualitative difference in what you are eating? Not usually. So what accounts for the cost difference? How much work someone else has done to get the food in edible form to you! The more you are willing to do, the more you can enjoy wholesome and tasty meals at a fraction of the cost it would be to purchase them, and it doesn’t take nearly as long as most people would assume.

    Tonight a neighbor stopped by to borrow a can of chickpeas. I’m really glad I could help her out, since this is something that I happened to buy at a really excellent price, but generally, I don’t have things like this in my pantry. Why not? I don’t need to pay someone else to soak a handful of beans and then cook them for me. How much time does making your own chick peas or beans take? It takes about a minute to fill a pot with water, throw in the peas/beans, and let them soak. After a few hours, rinse them, fill the pot with fresh water, and let them cook on low for a few hours while you’re doing other things at home. Total hands on prep time? Maybe 3 minutes. But you’ve easily saved 50% or more on your expenses.

    Multiply the above technique a number of times in a week, and you are starting to save some serious money. Take an honest look at all the things you buy ready made: sauces, pie crusts, cookies and cakes, granola, etc. I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy anything ready made, but look at what the price of convenience is for you. Don’t forget to factor in the time you spend going to and from the store to buy all of this stuff, because that adds up, too. Cut out bakery goods as much as possible. It’s cheaper to buy a cake mix, and cheaper still to bake from scratch. But if you like the convenience of a cake mix and would like to enjoy the savings advantage of cooking from scratch, consider spending 15 – 20 minutes making up a number of batches of your own mixes and store them in separate labelled ziploc bags until you’re ready to bake.

    To get you started, here’s a recipe for Dark Rick Chocolate Cake Mix (makes one 9×13 pan):
    1 c. white flour (I use white whole wheat flour)
    2/3 c. whole wheat flour  (again, I prefer white whole wheat flour)
    1 1/2 c. sugar (I use sucanat)
    3/4 c. cocoa
    1/4 c. dry milk powder/rice milk powder
    2 t. baking soda
    1 t. baking powder
    1/2 t. salt
    1 T. instant coffee

    Measure all the above ingredients directly into a gallon sized ziploc bag.

    When you’re ready to prepare it, mix together:
    one pkg of your mix
    2 c. water
    1/2 c. oil
    2 eggs

    Put it in a greased 9 x 13 pan, and bake at 35 – 40 minutes.

    Avivah

  • Recovering dining room chairs

    Yesterday we bought a ten foot conference table to replace our current dining room table. The table we’ve had until now is really nice, but is only 8.5 feet long. It comfortably seats 10, but we are already nine, and we enjoy having company over. Until now, we would bring out an additional table if we are having guests. Now, thanks to the shape and positioning of the table legs, we will be able to seat 12 very comfortably, and add another four on the corners (it’s an oval shape) without an unreasonable squish! Dh was also happy with it, which was nice, since he didn’t really feel the need to get another table. The woman selling them also had some chairs that she offered to give us, since she wasn’t using them and she was trying to declutter the part of her house where they were being stored. Initially, she thought she had four, but it turned out that she had eight! They are good sturdy chairs, though the cushions were kind of dusty and a couple were discolored. So I decided to recover them.

    Refurbishing the chairs has been tonight’s project – we started after dinner and worked on it for a couple of hours. We were given a bunch of full length drapes a few weeks ago that don’t match any of our rooms, but the fabric is very nice quality. (I kept the drapes around because I made matching blanket covers for my bedroom with one set, and was planning to make another set of blanket covers with the other set of drapes.) We took apart the drapes (they are flannel lined so we needed to separate the three layers) so we can use the fabric to cover the seats and backs of the chairs. There are a lot of steps involved, and it’s a nice amount of work, but I really would like to finish all of the chairs by Friday. So far, we have four seat cushions finished (mostly the kids’ work – and they look great), and I’m working on the back cushions, which are more labor intensive and trickier to make look just right. It was a good night’s work for us all, and it’s fun for us all to see something so nice emerge from some chairs and drapes that we got for nothing, by just putting in some effort. Two boys went to sleep earlier than usual, but the rest of us worked together – my youngest daughter unscrewed the chairs, oldest son pried off the backing from the bottom of the chairs, and two older dds cut the fabric and plastic covering out and each covered one cushion. I kind of laughingly thought of it as my ‘sweatshop’ when I looked at all the kids in pajamas working on different parts of it assembly line style. We decided to cover the fabric with a heavy duty clear vinyl to keep it looking new for a long time.

    In the middle of all the mess someone came by. She had called to ask if it would be okay for her to drop off a gift from a ‘Mompreneur’ group that I spoke to about work/life balance a couple of months ago, but I got so involved in the project that I lost track of time and was momentarily surprised to see her at the door. I was really surprised to receive a gift – I just loved having the opportunity to share some thoughts on the topic with a great group of women. Anyway, she saw what was going on (it would have been impossible not to – everything was everywhere!) and asked my kids if we always do such fun projects. Actually, we do, though I don’t set out to do them because I want us to have fun. I’m not a traditional fun mom in that I don’t naturally play games with my kids (I wrote in the past about how I’ve worked on that), but I’m pretty good at involving them in my work, and letting them share the pleasure of something meaningful and concrete accomplished.

    If you’re wondering how I know how to reupholster furniture – I didn’t. I just took apart one chair last night and figured it out, and keep finding easier ways to do things as I go along. I find that most things aren’t as difficult as they seem, if you’re willing to try something new and put in the time to learn.

    Avivah