Category Archives: Intentional Spending

Is it worth your time to get bank fees refunded? I think so!

Intentional Spending, Parenting

It’s that time of year when there are the yearly payments to cover my website expenses, so I do a bit of online juggling to make sure money is in the right places for the various automatic withdrawals. Tonight I got a message in my email inbox, notifying me know that the transfer I had made from my bank to my Paypal account didn’t go through due to lack of funds.

I was taken aback since there was plenty of money in the transferring account so I quickly logged onto my bank account and saw that I had mistakenly done the transfer from one of my two accounts (one is savings, one is checking). Though the accounts are linked, rather than automatically transfer the necessary funds from one account to the other, the transfer was denied.

I didn’t mind that, but I did mind that I was charged a $29 non-sufficient funds fee for the transfer that didn’t go through. I didn’t think that I should be charged for a failed transfer from one of my accounts to another. I called my bank to explain what happened; the representative very courteously heard me out and said she understood. (She can also look at my 13 years of banking history at their bank and see that I don’t have a history of insufficient funds fees – if I don’t have money for something, I don’t buy it. My secret for staying debt-free. :))

Then she asked me a very interesting question: “Well, Ms. Werner, what would you like us to do about this fee?” Isn’t that a nice response?

I told her I wanted the $29 fee waived; she agreed that would be appropriate and she would take care of it while I was on the phone.

Well, that was easy!

While I waited for two minutes for her to refund the fee, I explained to my son who was impatiently waiting to know what I was talking to her about what happened. I explained that it’s our responsibility to be aware of what happens to our money. No one cares what happens to your finances like you do.

Was it worth the few minutes on the phone to get $29/110 shekels refunded? Yes, I thought so!

Similarly, I check my receipts before leaving the store when I shop – I have found so many errors and almost none of them were favorable to me. (Of course, I notified them when I was undercharged as well.)

The little things matter!

Avivah

Having fun making essential oils blends and salves and other DIY healthy kind of stuff

Healthy Living, home remedies, Homemaking, Intentional Spending

Winter is here (well, kinda of – it’s been very warm and one son was wearing shorts and a short sleeved shirt yesterday), and we’ve been having fun with some diy health related kind of projects.

Eight years ago before moving to Israel, I traded 50 pounds of spelt berries for a few small, lightweight bottles of essential oils. I didn’t use the oils regularly because even though essential oils are great, you have to: 1) know how and when to use them, and 2) make them easy to use or you’re not going to use them regularly.

Thanks to the diffuser I was gifted by my mom last year, it’s now easy for me to regularly diffuse oils, which I love to do! With the recent free shipping option to Israel from Amazon, I was able to buy a set of roller ball applicator bottles, which I filled with essential oil blends. I made a blend for cuts and bruises (easy to slip into my purse), and one for germ fighting to apply to the younger boys before they head out in the morning to their classrooms.

In case you’re wondering about costs, I buy large 4 ounce bottles of the essential oils I consider most important (NOT from the name brand companies), then use recipes found online for the issues I want to address and make blends at a fraction of what it would cost to buy them. For example, I made an athlete’s foot blend (castor oil, tea tree, lavender) – I call it ‘Foot Freshener” for one of my sons, conveniently stored in a plastic dispenser with a roller top.

I also recently discovered the amazingness of shea butter! I know, how could I have walked through the world all these decades and been oblivious, right? I’m remedying that right now! I ordered a pound of raw shea butter to play with in making my own salves. I haven’t made salves for quite some time but still have beeswax around from the last go around, so it was pretty simple and fun to put together a few mixes.

In the past, I used olive oil infused with herbs as a base for my salves (http://avivahwerner.com/2009/09/25/making-first-aid-salve/ ). This time, I used shea butter with essential oils and made: a vapor rub (similar to Vicks or Unkers- I like to use this when the kids over age 6 are congested or have a sore throat – I used eucalyptus, lavender, frankincense, rosemary); a general antibiotic salve (tea tree, helichyrsum, lavender, frankincense) and a facial moisturizer.

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Last night I pulled out my capsule filler, which I haven’t used for years. The boys enjoyed figuring out how to use it and filled a bunch of capsules with vitamin C. If you’re wondering how I happen to have empty vegetarian capsules, loads of powdered vitamin C and a capsule filler on hand, you haven’t read my blog long enough. 🙂 Seriously, though, these are the kind of things I keep around.

Vitamin C is a wonderful support for when your immune system is down with whatever is going around, big or small. We generally give our kids powdered vitamin c in water and some kind of sweetener, like juice or xylitol. That’s perfect for the younger kids but the older ones prefer the capsules, and so do I! (Here is my post with guidelines on how much to dose – http://avivahwerner.com/2010/01/27/vitamin-c-for-health/ .)

I’ve hardly ever needed to give any of our eleven kids antibiotics, since vitamin C has been so effective and isn’t accompanied by all the potential side effects. Why isn’t this cheap, easy and super effective remedy for literally just about everything widely known?

In any case, it’s so easy and gratifying to create something people tend to think has to come from a store, right in my own kitchen!

Avivah

Keeping bar mitzva costs down – you don’t have to do what everyone else is doing!

Intentional Spending, Parenting

When I have some time away from my blog and then come back, I always have a sense of “Where do I start with and what should I talk about first?” Today I’ll answer this question that’s been sitting in the queue for a while!

My son’s bar mitzva was beautiful. He had a long and difficult Torah portion to read, and he did beautifully. He also read the Haftorah. The rest of our male family members dominated the prayer service. 🙂 One son got hagba (raising the Torah scroll), another was honored with p’sicha (opening the ark), my husband and sons-in-law received aliyahs, and and my oldest son davened the musaf service. It was very special for me.

bm brothers

And all of our little granddaughters were there, even the newest one who was less than two weeks old. And of course their mothers. 🙂

Pesach 2019 sisters 1

I’m telling you, it was serious nachas. I kept thanking Hashem for the privilege of raising these children and His kindness and partnership with us throughout the years.

family pic 2019

I have a question for you, if you have time, I’d love to get your thoughts on bar mitzvahs and not spending 10k like most of my son’s friends are doing..!

Well, how much you spend depends on where you live, what the standards are and how comfortable you are establishing your own standards!

A friend recently made a bar mitzva and told me I was her inspiration for thinking outside of the box and doing what was right for her family – which included keeping costs proportionate to their income. I love hearing about people finding their own path; it’s not always easy but there’s a lot of freedom in acknowledging your personal preferences and limitations, and making choices accordingly.

I remember speaking to an Ethiopian woman in Karmiel who worked cleaning homes for a living. She told me she spent thirty thousand shekels on her son’s bar mitzva party. When I expressed surprise (shock, actually), she told me this was the norm for all of his friends. A friend here in RBS told me the same figure.

There’s no question that it’s a lot of pressure when all of your child’s have a given standard and you feel you have to live up to it. After all, you don’t want to embarrass your child. So hopefully you’ve chosen a community that has compatible values in terms of how a simcha is celebrated with your own.

When it comes to bar mitzva plans, we take into account the preferences of the bar mitzva boy. I originally had one thing in mind, and my son had a different idea.

I thought since his actual birthday was on Shabbos, we’d have a large lunch meal with all our family and his friends in attendance. When ds20 had this same scenario, we had 90 people for Shabbos lunch and it was really lovely. But when I broached the idea with my son, he told me that he has friends and teachers who don’t live locally, and it was very important to him that he have an event that all of his classmates and teachers could attend. So that was the end of my idea!

The Shabbos of the bar mitzva we had immediate family members for the entire Shabbos. On Shabbos morning we hosted a kiddush (dessert buffet) at shul following his Torah reading.

Most of his friends have their bar mitzva celebrations in a hall. I didn’t want to do that, because then we have to fill the hall and I wasn’t planning to invite my friends. The purpose of this evening was for my son to celebrate with the people he wanted to have there. He made the invitation list, he delivered them all personally to everyone on his list – I gave no suggestions or input to this. (Some of our friends did come, because he wanted them there and invited them!)

We are blessed with a large porch, and thanks to the renovations we did this summer, we have a large open plan dining room/kitchen. While certainly not comparable in size to a hall, I was sure we could fit the 60 – 70 people he wanted to invite for a sit down meal.

Our plans changed just a week before the party. Due to the unseasonable and unpredictable cold and rainy weather we were having. I wasn’t at all confident that the weather would cooperate with our plans. So at the last minute we scrambled to find a new location and had his party at a shul.

This ended up being really nice for a number of reasons and I think it was nicer than it would have been at our home.

I feel a sense of communal responsibility every time we have an event, because community expectations are based on what everyone does. I think it’s a kindness to the community to unapologetically hold the costs and standards down, which are continually ratcheting up. My goal has never been to have the cheapest possible event, but to have a celebration that honors the person being celebrated, and to do it in a tasteful and financially responsible way.

My experience is that people appreciate it, and I don’t think anyone has ever considered any of our celebrations cheap. The principal of my son’s school was there and told us how much he liked how we did it: “Hakol she’tzarich k’mo she’tzarich” – loosely translated to, “Everything that there should be, in the spirit it should have. ”

 

I saved every receipt so I could share with you exactly what I spent for everything, but if I wait until I sift through and add up every shekel, this post isn’t going to get finished for a very long time! I have all the exact figures except for the bar mitzva meal food expenses written down so I’m going to overestimate on that rather than give numbers that are too low.

Since I think the question that was asked was inquiring about the costs generally associated with the party itself, I’m not including the costs of bar mitzva lessons for nine months (about 3000 shekels), or tefillin (also 3000 – we got a very good price on them). However, I’m mentioning them since they are spiritually and financially significant. They aren’t usually talked about but these are the most important costs, the costs of preparing a young man for a life of mitzvos.

Kiddush – our shul has a very simple standard, which I appreciate, and there are two different options. The simpler kiddush is 2200 shekels and includes brownies, cookies, chocolate rugelach, cinnamon rugelach, potato kugel, pekalach and drinks. The one that is slightly nicer is 2600 shekels, and includes herring and crackers in addition to the other items.

This really isn’t a lot, considering the shul I used to go to has an average cost of 6000 shekels for the kiddush (it’s a completely different standard), and that this is for 200 people. But it was more than I wanted to spend for a simple kiddush. I asked the person who takes care of this to share a list of what items are bought and quantities of each, and told him I’d like to try doing some of my own shopping. Since this isn’t something the shul makes a profit on, he was doubtful that I could do any better price-wise but agreed.

I decided not to get the potato kugel. Yes, that’s standard for the shul but I can do what I want to do, right? (That’s what I reminded myself because I was feeling I had to get exactly what he usually got!) I didn’t feel it added value for me personally. I got about eight kinds of bakery cookies, two kinds of crackers and three kinds of rugelach (miniature rolled yeast cakes), and drinks.

Then I added on some items: herring, chumus, olives, halva, banana chips, and two kinds of gummy candies. I also got 100 bags of bisli snacks for the kids. (I was told they usually get pekalach for the kids so that they don’t grab all the more expensive things. I don’t like to skimp on quantities and I bought plenty of everything so kids could also have as much as they wanted, but I still got the bags of bisli.)  I got a ton of stuff.

The shul has  policy that everything has to be store bought, or I would have made some fruit and veggie platters and some other things. It was good that I couldn’t do that because it kept me from adding any extra activities to my list at an already very busy time.

Total for kiddush: 1004 shekels. This included everything and I had lots of leftover cookies, rugelach and drinks, that I put out at the bar mitzva the next night. I had leftovers of everything else, too, even the herring, which usually gets totally finished!

As far as the bar mitzva seuda/party, I also had some last minute changes. I planned a very casual menu that included hot dogs, roast, french fries – things I thought this group of guests would enjoy more than the standard chicken/rice/green beans. But alas! When I bought the hot dogs, it was before I knew that the widely accepted kosher certification on this product (Kehillot, for those who are wondering) wasn’t used by the school.

It was the night before the party when I realized my error. I went to a number of stores, but none of them had hot dogs with the kosher supervision I needed. That’s because it was the week before Pesach and only kosher for Passover products were being sold, and this organization that gives the kosher certification (Eida Chareidis) doesn’t authorize things like hot dogs for the holiday.

Okay, so time to change the menu! Then one of my older boys objected when he heard my menu, telling me I wasn’t making enough food. I knew he was wrong but rather than argue, I just made more food. 🙂 It really wasn’t a big deal.

The menu ended up as follows:

  • homemade rolls
  • chummus
  • olives, pickles
  • Israeli salad
  • brisket
  • sliced chicken breast
  • rice
  • french fries
  • green beans with red peppers and onions
  • ice cream
  • cupcakes, cookies
  • (additional cookies and rugelach from kiddush)

Here’s the breakdown of costs for the seuda/party:

  • Food and paper goods for the seuda: 1000 – 1200 shekels
  • Wait staff –  630 shekels – I wasn’t sure if this was a good use of money but in the end was glad I hired this out since I was able to sit and let them make sure things got served with minimal involvement on my part.
  • Music – 250 – my son had a friend he knew from when they were in high school who was very experienced but not yet officially ‘in the business’. He played the keyboard and was excellent; the music added tremendously to the atmosphere and the fun.
  • Music equipment rental – 200 – there was someone who had a gemach for this; the price included delivery, set up in the beginning and break down at the end
  • Photography – 0 – we hired someone to do a family photo right before the bar mitzva Shabbos but decided not to do photography for the party. We figured friends and family would probably take pictures and didn’t feel we needed more than that.
  • Shul rental – this is one of the shuls we pay a monthly membership to; they don’t officially have a hall and getting the space ready for the bar mitzva was a lot of work. They didn’t ask us to pay anything. 200 shekels

Total for meal for 70 people (using higher food estimate): 2480 shekels.

I once again had lots of leftovers but no one minded since it was a few days before Pesach and it’s helpful to have food to eat when you’re scurrying around cleaning and turning your kitchen over.

So there you have it, 3484 shekels for a kiddush for 200 and meal for 70. Again, my focus isn’t on cutting costs to a minimum but I do try to be a good steward of what we have. I was pleased to that our son was very, very happy with his bar mitzva weekend, and I wasn’t stressed by the costs even though it was taking place at what is easily the most expensive week of the Jewish calendar.

So my suggestions are when making a celebration: think about what it means to you, what will feel good for you, what resources do you have to work with? And then, ask yourself what kind of things match that vision? Then execute accordingly.

Avivah

 

My weekly grocery expenses, teaching my son how to figure unit pricing

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, menu plans

Another week, another list of grocery expenses to share with you! I hope these lists help you see that it’s doable to cut your food bill without depriving your family and living off of pasta and beans. 🙂  I don’t shop anywhere special, just in the local supermarkets in my area. Everyone’s list will reflect their needs, buy by applying the various strategies that I’ve shared, it will really make a difference to your food costs.

This week I spent 954.25; this doesn’t include a few items my husband bought for about 30 shekels – he didn’t give me the receipt yet so I didn’t include it in my numbers. I aim to stay within 1000 shekels a week and including his purchases, it’s under that number. Let’s call it 985 total.

Here’s the breakdown:

Produce – 219.40:

  • avocados, 2.60 kg x 6.90 – 17.94
  • carrots, 3.88 kg x 2.90 – 11.24
  • clementines, 8.70 kg  x 2.90 – 25.23
  • coconuts (3) – 11.90
  • cucumbers, 4.43 kg x 2.90 – 12.86
  • fennel, 5.65 kg x 2.90 – 16.39
  • kohlrabi, 4.83 kg x 4.90 – 23.69
  • onions, 3.66 kg x 5.90 – 21.59
  • radishes, 2.31 kg x 4.90 – 11.34
  • tomatoes, 4.5 kg x 3.90 – 17.69
  • turnip, 1.30 kg x 1.90 – 2.48
  • zucchini, dk green – 9.08 kg x 3.90 – 35.41
  • zucchini, lt green, 2.98 kg x 3.90 – 11.64

Staples – 326.61:

  • sugar (3) – 10.90
  • oatmeal – 5.90
  • flour (4 kg) – 10
  • rice cakes – (2) – 22
  • grape juice (1) – 11.20
  • extra virgin olive oil (2) – 43.80
  • white beans, dried, 1 kg (2) – 12
  • chick peas, dried, 1 kg (4) – 19.60
  • peanut butter, 1 kg (8) – 80 (yes, you read that right, 8 kg of peanut butter – it was a great sale, and when prices are this good it’s time to stock up!)
  • diced tomatoes (4) – 20
  • pickles (3) – 12.90
  • mayonnaise – 29.90
  • tomato concentrate – (6) – 24
  • mustard – 7.50
  • strawberry jam (3) – 5.70
  • raisins – 8.40
  • craisins – 6.67
  • honey, 900 gr – 19.90

Refrigerator/frozen – 361.54:

  • milk (2)- 10
  • cottage cheese, 375 gr (6) – 36
  • sour cream – (5 x 2.20) – 11
  • cream cheese – 14.80
  • hot dogs, 17.80 shekels per kilo – 28.48
  • ground meat, 32.50 shekels per kg – 68.25
  • whole chicken (8 whole, 12.66 kg x 12.90) – 163.31
  • frozen corn, 1 kg – 9.90
  • frozen peas, 1 kg – 9.90
  • frozen green beans, 1 kg – 9.90

Non-food items- 46.70:

  • toilet paper – 29.90
  • tissue, 5 pack – 11.90
  • garbage bags, roll of 25 – 4.90

This week ds11 accompanied me to a couple of stores. I had him work out the unit pricing for a number of items (real life math skills!). He was able to see how by paying attention to details, it’s possible to spend much less than other shoppers who aren’t noticing those details, even  when shopping in the same store for the same things.

I’ve been noticing that I’m consistently buying more than I need in the produce department, and cooking too much food every night for dinner. It’s all those years of cooking for a big crowd, and I haven’t reset to a smaller amount when cooking for just 9 of us.  I joked with one of my married daughters that as her family grows, she’ll be growing out of her starter pots at the same time that I’ll need to downsize from my big pots, and we can trade then!

Avivah

My weekly food expenses, menu plan and living within your means

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, menu plans

This week’s grocery shopping was unusually compact.

This month, the day care that Rafael attends mistakenly deducted an extra 2500 shekels from our account. We’ll get it refunded, but it will take time to straighten it out.

Then, the gas company told us that for the last year they’ve been billing someone else for our account, and we need to immediately pay them the year’s sum of 2500 shekels. Since we try very, very much not to defer payment by putting it on a credit card, we used the cash that would have otherwise have gone to a couple of other categories, including food for the week.

That wasn’t the problem it sounds like – we had 200 left in cash and some small change in my wallet so that became my food budget for the week. I enjoyed my minimal shopping and was grateful that even though I didn’t anticipate having such a small sum to work with in advance, I was sufficiently stocked up that I didn’t need to buy much, even for our family Chanuka party and having guests for Shabbos.

This is really a benefit of shopping the way I do – it’s not just about saving money week to week, but creating margin so that I’m not facing an empty pantry two days before I have cash to restock up. Not only am I not running low, I even had enough surplus that no one noticed that I hardly bought any groceries!

Here’s the grocery list for this week:

  • 6 trays of eggs, 30 eggs per tray – 144
  • avocados, 1.3 kg x 6.80 kg – 8.68
  • onions, 1 kg x 7.90 – 7.90
  • onions, 4.80 kg x 5.90 – 28.11
  • potatoes, 4.1 kg x 2.80 – 11.44
  • grape juice (1) – 11.20
  • flour – 1 kg – 2.90

Total – 214.23 shekels

Edited to add in response to a question from a reader:

Can you please also post a menu for a week of what you are planning on making with this food? I just see lots of latkes and potato kugel, with some challah on the side.
Fish? Chicken? Beans? Some kind of protein? Veggies and fruit? Pasta? Breakfast?
I’m honestly confused.

This was my shopping list from the past week – I think the point wasn’t clear that I didn’t need to buy anything else since I was stocked with vegetables, fruits, canned goods, and chicken from previous weeks.(You can look back at my shopping lists for the two weeks before this to get a sense of how I shop and what I bought.) It would be mighty slim pickings if I was only going to cook with those items that were purchased this past week!

My menu from last week using these groceries as well as what I had on hand: Sun – smoky chickpea stew (includes chicken); Mon – chicken/white bean/corn succotash; Tues – sweet potato chili (includes chicken); Weds – polenta casserole (chickpeas and polenta, topped with sauteed zucchini and onions and then on top of that a seasoned tomato sauce – I made an additional pan to put in the freezer); Thurs – Chanuka party (menu below); Sun – l – baguettes and hot dogs, d – tuna vegetable sauce and rice.

We made latkes and doughnuts twice on Chanuka, once for our Chanuka party and once a different night.

The Chanuka party menu was cream of zucchini soup, chicken, latkes, applesauce, rice, vegetable salad and doughnuts.

My Shabbos dinner menu was challah, homemade dips (dill, hummus, avocado), chicken soup, roast chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted green beans with red peppers, canned fruit, babka, rugelach.

Shabbos breakfast for the kids – cheerios and milk.

Shabbos lunch – challah, dips, (forgot to serve the baked fish and had it shalosh seudos instead), cold roast chicken, cholent, tomato avocado salad, traffic light pepper salad (three colors of peppers), baked apples, rugelach. Melave malka – rolls, chicken and vegetables.

I put a few meals into the freezer for my husband to take to work of chicken breast with sauteed onions, red peppers and fennel.

Breakfast this week was the same as always – in our house, it’s almost always oatmeal, polenta or eggs. I usually have a big salad with some kind of protein for brunch. Lunch is sometimes sandwiches, sometimes leftovers from dinner, sometimes something completely different.

So no, we weren’t limited to eating just bread and potatoes!

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Tonight I was talking with ds19 about only buying for what you can pay cash for. He said it’s not so easy to do, because when you want something, it’s hard to put it off a day or three until you have the cash for it.

I was reminded of something a good friend of mine said years ago: “I could never live like you do!”

I wasn’t sure what she meant, since we weren’t going without. She explained, “If I want to buy something, I buy it now. I don’t want to have to think about if I have money for it and wait until next week or next month.”

I understand how that could sound limiting to someone. I see it differently. To me, debt is hard, living outside of my means is stressful, worrying about how to pay the bills and not knowing where the money will come from is anxiety provoking. Waiting a bit to buy myself a discretionary item isn’t much of a sacrifice when looking at the options.

To me, it’s freeing to live with clarity about my finances, not sacrifice.

I don’t care if I impress anyone with what I have or what I buy. I don’t care about if I have the latest, greatest, biggest whatever. I don’t mind if I have to wait for another month when there’s more room in the budget for discretionary items. I’ll either buy what I have the money for or I won’t buy it.

Very simple. 🙂

Avivah

Food expenses for week of Nov. 26

Intentional Spending

This week I was taking care of an errand in the center of town and when I passed a vegetable store, went in to check out their prices. The prices were good enough for me to fill up a shopping cart and I’ll definitely go back.

Frugality lesson 1: keep your eyes open for new shopping sources

While I was there I noticed a box of overripe avocados and was curious if they were being sold for a reduced price. In response, the produce guy asked me if I wanted them and told me he’d load them into my car when I was ready to leave.  That was a nice bonus for a question that took a half a minute to ask!

Frugality lesson 2: don’t be afraid to ask about discounted produce.

I peeled and blended up all the avocados that afternoon, added some lemon juice, olive oil and salt, and froze them in two cup containers. I got sixteen cups of avocado puree from the free avocados. Since earlier this year I bought frozen avocado puree, I knew it would defrost well.

I also made some meals for my husband to take to work. He doesn’t eat grains, so basically his meals are vegetables and protein. He’s not demanding about his food and would be okay with boiled chicken and vegetables every day but he works hard and he deserves to have a nice meal to eat. He didn’t want to add to my work, but I don’t see it like that – to me it’s a chance to send love in a physical form.

This week I made him a stir fry with strips of chicken breast, onions, peppers, mushrooms and fennel; chicken saute (diced chicken breast) with avocado and steamed zucchini with carrots;  roast chicken quarters with a  vegetable medley of roasted mushrooms, zucchini and eggplant.

Here’s my shopping list for this week – this covers three meals a day for 9 of us, with the exception of ds6, who gets lunch at school.

Produce – 233.40:

  • apples, 13.20 kg x 3.80 – 50.08
  • avocados, 2.4 kg x 5.90 – 14.16
  • cabbage, 1.80 x 2.90 – 5.26
  • cabbage, 3.37 x 1.90 – 6.39
  • carrots, 2.6 kg x 2.90 – 7.53
  • clementines, 2.69 kg x 3.90 – 10.47
  • cucumbers, 3.8 kg x 2.90 – 11.02
  • coconuts (2) – 10
  • eggplant, 3.77 kg x 2.90 – 10.98
  • fennel, 2.9 x 4.90 – 14.21
  • kohlrabi, 2.31 x 3.90 – 9.01
  • peppers, orange, 2.50 kg x 3.80 – 9.58
  • peppers, yellow, 2 kg x 3.80 – 7.68
  • persimmons, 2.08 kg x 8.90 – 18.47
  • potatoes, 4.2 kg x 2.80 – 11.73
  • tomatoes, 5 kg x 3.90 – 19.32
  • turnips, 1.10 kg x 3.90 – 4.29
  • zucchini, dk green, 3.085 kg x 4.90 – 15.12
  • zucchini, lt green, 2.06 kg x 3.90 – 8.01

Refrigerator/freezer items – 481.19:

  • cottage cheese, 9% , 200 grams (1) – 5.70
  • cottage cheese, 5%, 375 grams (6) – 36
  • hard cheese, 1 kg (2 x 25) – 50
  • butter, 200 grams (4 x 7.40) – 29.60
  • gluten free rolls ( 4 pkg x 4.90) – 19.60
  • hot dogs 1.6 kg – 29.90
  • milk, 4 liters – 18
  • frozen green beans, 1 kg (2 x 9.90)- 19.80
  • whole chicken, 13.6 kg x 11.90 –  161.84
  • chicken quarters, 5 kg x 14.90 – 74.50
  • chicken breast, 6.10 kg x 19.90 – 121.39

Staples – 244.33:

  • whole oats (750 grams x 6) – 35.40
  • polenta (1 kg x 10.90) – 43.60
  • cornflakes, 1.5 kg (1) – 19.90
  • tomato paste (2 x 6.90) – 13.80
  • rice cakes (1 – 4 pk) – 14.90
  • gluten free flour mix (3 kg) – 10
  • marshmallows (2 x 1.90) – 3.80
  • peanuts – 24.13
  • chocolate – 8.50
  • chocolate – 18
  • dried unsweetened coconut pieces (snack) – 18.40
  • extra virgin olive oil, 750 ml (2 x 21.90) – 43.80

Non-food items – 46.90:

  • garbage bags (2 rolls of 25 bags x 4.90)- 9.80
  • olive oil for lighting menorah, 1 liter – 11.90
  • Chanuka candles, 8 x 1.90 – 15.20
  • dish soap – 10

This week’s total for food comes to 958.92; together with the non-food items it tallies up to 1005.82 shekels. I asked my husband to go out for a couple of items; his additional discretionary purchases pushed my budget beyond the 1000 I wanted to stick to. He said I should write a post about the dangers of sending husbands shopping. 🙂

If you don’t see something on my list, either I didn’t need it or I already have it in my pantry/fridge/freezer. Each week part of my purchases are for food that gets used up that week and food that goes towards stocking up when prices are good.

Avivah

 

My weekly food expenses, week of Nov. 19

Homemaking, Intentional Spending

People often ask about how I keep my food costs down, especially since they know we try to eat healthfully and don’t use the typically less expensive processed foods (pasta, anyone?).

Currently there are nine of us living at home, two adults, two teenagers, and two others who eat as much as teenagers :).  Most weekends we have at least one married couple and once a month my almost 20 year old son is home from yeshiva. We also sometimes have guests but less often than we did before the kids were married – we like to leave time to spend with them.

We have two children who are gluten free so all meals during the week are made accordingly.  Our costs include three meals a day; I send lunch for my husband (my new cost cutting measure since we were both shocked how much he was spending) and my high schooler takes lunch with him.

Right now my weekly budget for food is 1100 shekels and includes toiletries and other miscellaneous things that have nothing to do with food like paying to recharge my sons’ bus cards. I’ve even bought clothes using food  money just because the cash is in my wallet! At the beginning of this month I tightened up on my record keeping so I can have an exact number for how much is spent on food; I know it’s under 1000 but I don’t know how much less. Starting next month I’ll have a better reference point.

My costs aren’t a reflection of only what I buy or where I buy it, but when and how I shop. People think I must shop somewhere different than them, but it’s really my combined strategies that add up to my reduced costs.

I allocate our food budget money once a week; below you’ll see my list of what I bought.

Here’s my shopping list for this week (prices in shekels):

  • chicken breasts, 10 pkg (13.2 kg x 19.90) – 264 approx.
  • chicken quarters,  5 pkg (5.775 kg x 15.90) – 91.82
  • whole chicken, 2 (4.90 kg x 13.90) – 84.11
  • grape juice, 3 – 43
  • butter (2 – 200 gr. pkg) – 15.20
  • milk (2) – 9
  • olives, 4 x 6.49 – 25.60
  • canned mushrooms (3) – 7.80
  • coconut cream (4 x 6.90) – 41.40
  • swiss chard (5), celery (3), parsley (2) , dill (1) , coriander (1)- 33
  • sugar – 4.40
  • chocolate gelt for Chanuka (8 bags) – 20
  • flour (5) – 10
  • diapers (4) – 98
  • tissues, 1 five pack- 6.80

Fruits and vegetables:

  • red potatoes, 11 kg (x 2.90)- 30 shekels
  • bananas, 2.8 kg x 3.90 kg – 11.06
  • red peppers, 5.6 kg x 3.90- 22.18
  • sweet potatoes, 20 kg approx x 2.9 –  58.80
  • ginger – .115 kg x 14.90 – 1.71
  • apples and oranges – (13.38 kg x 2.90) – 38.80

That brings me pretty close to the end of the budget for the week!

You might be looking at this list and wondering what kind of list this is! It looks very incomplete, right?

I buy large amounts of items when they go on sale; if the price is nothing special, I get just what I need for a week or so. Each week always includes the food I’m buying that will be used beyond that week.

Things I didn’t need to buy:

  • eggs
  • cukes, tomatoes, carrots, avocados, onions, lettuce – bought at the end of last week
  • rice, kasha, oatmeal, lentils (brown/orange), white/red/black/black eyed peas, chickpeas
  • tomato paste, canned tomatoes, tuna, canned fruit, applesauce
  • chicken wings, gizzards, ground chicken
  • coconut oil, olive oil
  • spices, lemon juice, vinegar
  • toilet paper, shampoo, disposable napkins/utensils

What I’ll buy between now and the end of the week:

  • Possibly some more cucumber and tomatoes – 20

Some of you may be living locally and wondering about the sale pricing on some of these things. I keep an eye on sale flyers and I get text message updates from another supermarket. This allows me to buy the items that are on sale and buy the rest of what I need from the supermarkets that overall have good prices (but can’t compete on the loss leader pricing).

For example, this week I bought 2 cases of sweet potatoes. In this cool weather, they’ll easily last three weeks. The sweet potatoes were on sale for 2.90 a kg; the usual price is 7.90 or more. This store has sale pricing on select produce two days a week – guess when I shop there? 🙂

Avivah

** I know some of you will want to know about kosher certification. I usually buy the Of Tov brand for chicken, which is not only usually less expensive but is antibiotic free. We’ve asked our rav about hechsherim and I suggest you do the same if you’re wondering about what is advisable to buy. I give no suggestions or recommendations in this area!

 

Why I bought an overpriced, beat up freezer

food preservation, Homemaking, Intentional Spending

This summer, I saw a used freezer listed for sale. It was priced too high, and when I went to take a look at it saw that it wasn’t cosmetically the best. A shelf was missing from the main freezer, a shelf support was missing on the door, and someone had tried to repaint over the very bottom. And the owner was only willing to go down a hundred shekels on the price.

When I buy used, I like to buy things that are in excellent condition – it doesn’t have to look brand new but I want it to look really good. And I like to buy things that are a good deal. Nothing about this freezer was a match for me.

Except for one important feature… and I bought this beat up old freezer! Why in the world did I do that?

With my oldest daughters married and my older teenagers all not available, I was feeling maxxed out and realized I needed some kind of help. The younger boys were a big help but I didn’t want to ask too much of them, and I couldn’t keep doing everything else myself – the shopping, the cooking, the laundry, the cleaning, the million and one other things that go with being a parent and keeping a house running. And homeschool. And spend relaxed time with my children. And give parenting classes. And see clients privately.

Too much.

Either I was going to have to pay someone to cook or clean for me (which in 26 years I had never done), or I was going to have to find some other kind of help.

This was my solution. This 14 year old massive American freezer that wouldn’t win any contests for looks.

freezer overview

The winning feature? Its size.

They don’t make freezers this big here; this was  brought over on a lift when someone moved here. I knew the additional space would allow me to cut down on how often I shopped and maximize good deals when I found them. I’d be able to cook in advance and save time on busy evenings. That would mean fewer things taking up my time and energy.

I paid 600 shekels and while it wasn’t technically worth more than 500 max, it was worth every shekel to me!

I’ve already saved tons of money by stocking up on chicken when the prices are low. And I’ve saved travel time and shopping time and gas costs in being able to shop less often. But more than the money savings – and that’s a significant reason to have a freezer – this has made my life so much easier!

It’s kind of like having a personal assistant. Kind of. Because while I still have to do the work, I can maximize my efforts by preparing two times the recipe, serving one and freezing one for a different night.

I can’t tell you how much I love this!

Here’s the picture tour. 🙂

 

freezer top

Top shelf: frozen meals (each labeled on top – the labels on the side tend to fall off).

Second shelf down: on the left, frozen chicken breasts and whole chicken. Bought on sale, of course. About 25 kg at this moment.

On the right side are lunches for my husband to take to work – he takes one out every evening before going to bed and it’s defrosted when he leaves early in the morning.

 

freezer middle

Here’s my solution to the missing shelf. I didn’t want to waste all that space and it was way too high a space to stack things.

I got these stackable plastic crates for free from two different supermarkets – crates of vegetables are packed in these and then thrown away. It would be nice if they fit perfectly and used every bit of space but it’s pretty darn good! This is all chicken wings; I bought 30 kg when they were on sale for 4.90 a couple of weeks ago.

freezer bottom

On the shelf under the chicken wings are frozen vegetables and fish.

The bottom is a pull out drawer and it filled with bags of cooked and shredded or sliced chicken gizzards to the left, and bags of frozen mashed bananas on the right.

(And on the very bottom you see the scuffy paint job. At some point when it’s empty, I’m going to clean it all out, scrape out the old paint and silicone it. I think that would look much better. But even though it’s ugly it’s still very usable so there’s no urgency to do this any time soon.)

In the door I have bags of cooked beans and other odds and ends. I have a couple of ideas of how to build a substitute door support for the top door shelf, but I haven’t needed the space yet so again, not pressing.

And now that I’ve reworked the space in our new kitchen area, we have room for a fridge and the freezer side by side, so it’s super convenient and easy to access.

I’m telling you, the simple things in life can make such a huge difference!

Avivah

 

Cutting food costs to build savings, weekly menu plan

Intentional Spending, menu plans

In the next 3.5 years, we’ll be making three bar mitzvas (the first of which is five months away).

Not only that, in the next 1.5 – 2 years, two of our children are likely to start dating for the purpose of marriage, which means funding two more weddings.

Those are all substantial expenses.  You can make frugal bar mitzvas and be cost conscious about weddings but frugal still isn’t free. Not at all.

During a recent conversation with my husband, we both agreed we’d like to be more intentional about our spending in order to increase our savings towards these big expenses.

Did you know that food is the second biggest expense for most people, after their mortgage/rent payments?  That’s why it makes sense to look at your spending on food if you want to create some financial leeway.

No, being more frugal with shopping and cooking alone won’t create tens of thousands of shekels of savings in two years but nonetheless, there’s a lot more saving potential in the small things than you might think!

So with that in mind, I’m setting a goal for myself to cut our food costs and channel the savings into, well, savings!

I find menu planning in the winter so much easier than in the summer, since thick stews and filling soups are appreciated by everyone!

Here’s the menu plan for this week:

Sunday: l – pitas with butter; dinner –  crustless turkey pot pie and kasha

Monday: l – bean burgers; d – salmon chowder

Tuesday: l – white bean shakshuka; d – ground beef sauce with spinach and baked potatoes

Wednesday: d – winter lentil soup

Thursday: d – chicken chili with white beans

You’ll notice that I haven’t planned out every meal – that’s because I sometimes use leftovers from dinner for lunch.  When I purposely cook double, I put it in the freezer for a meal a week or two later.

*********************

Last week ds11 and I went to pick up our order for 20 kg of coconut oil at the baking supply store I periodically order from.

I heard about a different wholesale store and since it was just 20 km away from the baking supply store (well at least on the map – naturally it took longer than I anticipated), decided to check it out after picking up the coconut oil.  It was reminiscent of the bulk shopping trips I used to make in the US, though smaller in scale, and I appreciate now having a car makes this a doable outing.

This store sells only bulk quantities and though the price difference on some items was unimpressive, on others it was significant. It was an exhausting shopping trip and while at first I wasn’t sure I would go back because it was so frustrating that they didn’t have prices or the minimum necessary purchase listed on lots of items nor could anyone working there other than a cashier help. But next time I’ll go early in the day when I’m better rested and I’ll know what to expect.

I’ve been trying out new recipes lately to integrate more beans into our family meals. So far all the new experiments have been very well received.

I’ve shared before about how helpful it is for me to soak and then cook large quantities of beans at one time, then to freeze them into portion sizes for easy use when I want to use them to cook with. It bears repeating since it’s a huge time and money saver!  (I’ll try to write about how this can be a starting place for a snowball savings.)

Dd22 opened up my freezer when she visited, and when seeing my bags of cooked beans and mashed bananas lining the freezer door commented that my freezer looks like hers, but in larger quantities! She’s grown up with these strategies so I suppose they’re second nature.

Another thing I regularly do is purchase a large quantity of gizzards. They are inexpensive pound for pound since there are no bones, very nutritious and very versatile. I usually cook up about 8 kilos of turkey gizzards, and a similar quantity of chicken gizzards.

Once they’re cooked, I slice the turkey gizzards and shred the chicken gizzards (using a food processor – I used to do it by hand and it took way too long!), then freeze meal sized portions. It’s so easy to pull it out for meals – I use shredded chicken in place of ground beef, and the sliced turkey in place of other dishes that call for a larger cut. For 208 shekels, I have between 16 – 20 family meals of cooked chicken ready to be used.

Avivah

 

Tips for eating healthy on a budget

food preservation, Homemaking, Intentional Spending

There is a commonly expressed frustration about how expensive it is to eat healthy on a budget. And it’s true that specialty products and organics tend to be quite pricey.

While in the US I had different shopping techniques and resources that dramatically cut my cost on even those specialty foods, there are some basic tips that apply wherever you live.

  • Eat simply.  Stay away from specialty ingredients, and stick to the basics. I don’t try to serve meals that will grace magazine pages – I want food that will be filling and nutritious for my family.

For example, for breakfast I mostly make hot cereal (oatmeal, polenta, rice pudding) or eggs. There was a long period during which I made quick breads, muffins and breakfast casseroles but I don’t have the energy or additional kitchen helpers for that now.

For Shabbos breakfast I make granola, yogurt (for 23 shekels I can make close to four liters with minimal time and effort( or buy cornflakes (I get 1.5 kilos of cornflakes for 20 shekels – this is enough for two or three weeks for our family.) Nothing exciting but it’s affordable, filling and tastes good.

Sample costs: for oats and rice I pay 10 shekels for 1.4 kilos, polenta is 10.90 a kilo. I use up to half a kilo to make enough for a generous breakfast when everyone is home (a third of a kilo is plenty otherwise). This is a maximum of 5.50 shekels for my biggest batch, which is enough for 8 kids, four of whom eat adult quantities.  I pay 24 shekels for 30 eggs (80 agurot per egg) – the younger kids eat two, the older kids have three each.

  • Know what prices are so you can recognize a good deal. Over the holiday season, chicken prices went through the roof. A couple of weeks later, my husband bought some whole chickens that he thought were a good price. They were a very good price – for the holiday season. The price was only okay two weeks later.

Many years ago I created a price book to get a clear idea of how much I was paying for each ingredient that I cooked with per pound. It was super helpful to get this kind of clarity. While I don’t have the need to do that now, I have a pretty good sense of what a good price is for most of the items I regularly buy.

If you don’t have any idea what a good price is, take some time to create a price book. It’s basically a listing of how much you pay per unit for each item that you regularly purchase. It’s really worth it – it will give you the confidence to know when something is a really good price or just an average price.

  • Buy on sale. Many stores have weekly loss leader sales. Right before the holiday season I bought about 20 whole chickens because the price was so good. The butcher told me that the store owner was selling the chicken for four shekels a kilo less than the price he paid for it!

Why would he do that, you might wonder? To get people into the store, since most people will buy other things not on sale once they’re already there. I have saved so, so much money like this. It’s always interesting to me that I shop in the same stores as everyone else but I spend much less – this is one reason why.

Here’s an old post of mine on tips for saving on food – they are still useful!

  • Buy seasonal. Whatever is grown in that season will be less expensive. 

If you pay attention, you’ll start to notice seasonal trends – for example, cabbage and avocados are getting very cheap right now, at the same time that tomatoes and cucumbers are going up.

That means that for example, though in the summer months I make lots of tomato salad, in the winter I shift to other vegetables.  in the winter tomatoes are out of season and the price goes up, so I shift away from tomatoes. I hardly use avocados once the weather is warm but use loads in the cool weather! This is one reason I don’t have a yearly menu plan – because that would necessitate buying ingredients regardless of the pricing.

  • Stock up when the prices are low. It’s worth finding some extra pantry space so you’ll have a place to store things so you can stock up when the prices are low. There are things you know you’ll need week after week – why spend more than you have to?

Don’t think that means that your budget will go wild – it won’t. Some weeks you’ll buy more of one thing, other weeks you’ll buy more of something else. It all balances out.

Stocking up also applies to perishables. While it’s not practical to buy massive amounts of fresh produce if you’re not going to be able to use it before it goes bad, consider preserving it in some way (freezing, drying, canning). This week I saw ripe bananas marked down to 2.50 shekels a kilo – I bought two cartons full. As soon as I got home, they were peeled, mashed and frozen in two cup portions for future use in baked goods and shakes.

Here are some examples of things that can be preserved and how to do them – if this interests you, I have separate categories in the archives with many posts on specific food preservation projects I did.

Making strawberry jam and canning cherries bought on sale

My first canning experience – turkey bought on sale

Canning to the rescue – preserving produce before it goes bad

Explaining food dehydration

  • Buy in bulk. There are some items that are much cheaper when bought in bulk. For me these are mostly specialty ingredients – things like raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, shredded coconut, coconut flour, almond flour, coconut oil.

But make sure you know what a good price is – don’t assume that because it’s being sold in bulk it’s cheaper. Often it is, but sometimes the savings is so small that it’s not worth the extra storage space or the large initial financial outlay.

How to buy in bulk

Buying in bulk through supermarkets

Add legumes. Beans are super affordable and versatile. There are many, many ways to serve them and they can extend your food budget considerably. That makes more room for the pricier foods that you’d like to include.

How to get kids to eat beans