Family budgeting

I'm so lucky that have a wonderful "soon to be" husband that's very good with details and money budgeting.

September 2009 I switched jobs to only work part time, and in doing so I dropped my income about $1000 per month, that's a big drop. Well, I don't think my spending reflected my drop in income as well is it should have. I'm not even a big spender, but all those little things add up quickly. I have to often remind myself of the lifestyle I lived when I was a single mom, working three jobs and still not bringing in a lot of money, we always had free fun and my mortgage was always paid. If I did it then, I can certainly adopt some of those things again. Sometimes having a decent job spoils you.

So starting in Jan 2010 we've been planing our budgeting together as a family of four and looking into the future when we'll be married, I'll be home with more kids, and we'll be living on one income. So in order for that to become a reality, we've started tracking and budgeting our money to get us to that place.

Of course we're paying for our wedding and honeymoon on our own, so that's a big ticket item/items that we want to get paid for.

Last week my wonderful sweetie showed me the spreadsheet from January with details on my spending for the family (not including wedding items), and I felt a pain of uggggg, not guilt, just uggg. Wow, I didn't realize how much I was spending on things that I really didn't need. And let me remind you that he only showed me the misc items, not the budgeted amounts for food, housing, and other fixed bills. As we're doing fine in that regards.

So, I'm happy to say that we went over the final spreadsheet for Feb this evening, and I cut my expenses in half. Yeah!!!!! And it wasn't that hard. I think the month of March should even be less.

You don't need money to have fun, and even when you have the money to do so, the funnest things are still usually the free ones.

God's words

I've really been diving into the Bible the past few days and realizing that there are many things that are written in the New Testament that many Chirstian families and the churches do not teach or follow. And there is controversy out there, even within the "commentary" in my study Bible about the reasons for the Apostles to write to the different churches in the New Testament time and for them to be included in the Bible. It seems that some people think those were written for only those Churches and that if your "church" was not dealing with the same issues that that particular church was dealing with, then it does not pertain to you.

Well, what is written in the Bible is for all, today, yesterday, and tomorrow. We need to believe and obey ALL of what God says, and not pick or choose what to obey. Of course He says we are free from the Law, but there are many, many things that God has very clear instructions for that He makes very clear in the NT books.

My eyes have been opened to things I didn't understand before, I guess I wasn't ready. I've been doing a lot of praying, writing in my prayer journal, and asking questions to other followers. We'll see where this road leads. I know for sure it will lead me closer and closer to God! I need to depend on Him for everything, and have more faith for all areas of my life.

It's easy when you have the means to buy and do things that you want or need, but then you are not trusting God to do much in your life When you 'have it all' and 'can take care of it on your own', what's there left for God to do?

That's all for my thoughts today, at least that's all I'm going to write. :)

fibro's ugly head popped into my life today......grrrrr!

Well, it's been awhile.
I can't even type straight right now because my body and brain are out of whack.
Why? I think it's a combonation of .........life.
I got stressed out this week. I had a little too much sugar. I had wonderful wheat breadsticks at the Olive Garden, but my body didn'tlike it. I drove to Seattle with the kids one day, I had deadlines for work, schooling, and my extracurricular activities that I may have sign up to do too much on.
Either way I look at it. , I failed my body. I'll be better in a few days. At least this is not what life is like every day. Useless and in pain.

Kitchen make over for under $150

I was worried at first that red might make it look smaller, because the kitchen is so small, but I was wrong! It's beautiful !

I was scrubbing icky , sticky, gross, grease build up on the wall behind the stove.

We're not quite finished, but I couldn't wait to share. I'm still going to make some curtains for the window, put in a curtain over two spaces where there aren't any cabinet doors, and we plan on putting a fresh coat of white paint on the coupboard doors, and new white knobs.

RAW for dinner

Not my actual photo, but it looked similar

Yesterday morning when I asked what everyone wanted for dinner, I had a request for everything RAW. OK, yeah! We'll ALL eat RAW for dinner.

I decided to make RAW tacos, using lettuce leaves and purple cabbage leaves for the shell, the inside was a mixture of soaked sunflower seeds, tomatoes, taco seasonings, and onions. Then we topped it off with avocado slices, tomato, and salsa (um, the salsa wasn't technically RAW, but it was without preservatives).

The kids didn't complain too much for about the different dish, but they said it wasn't their "favorite".



Then I made some mostly RAW fudge brownies for desert.



I mixed all the below in a food processor, with the nuts going in first.

1 c almonds

1 c macadamia nuts

1 cups medjool dates (pitted)

1/2 c cocoa powder (recipe calls for cacao powder, but I don't use it as it's highly addictive and a stimulant)



After I processes it all I put it into a plastic lined 8x8 pan and stuck it in the freezer. When partially frozen it cuts into squares easily. Then I usually put the frozen squares into another covered container and keep in the freezer and just take out what I need or want.

If your family isn't into eating everything RAW all the time, which most aren't, just try to substitute someting RAW into something familiar. Make sure they are eating cut vegies with their lunches rather then fruit (save that for the mornings or snack), use large lettuce leaves instead of bread for a tuna or sandwich wrap, just like you would use a tortilla. For dessert in the evening make a yummy and pretty fruit parfeit.

I also recomend for everyone's health substituting wheat products with gluten free products. More people have a gluten intolerance then they think. Give your digestive system a rest from gluten products for two weeks (oats, barley, and wheat) and see how your body likes it. If you decide to introduce gluten products back into your system, does your stomache hurt, or does your mouth get a lot of saliva in it after eating wheat products?

Our family is still half and half. The girls don't tolerate gluten products very well, and the boys are transitioning. The key is to finding good recipies that work, one example is substituting a good gluten free pancake recipie, and a gluten free or at least sprouted wheat bread to purchase rather then the regular wheat bread.

Happy eating!

Love your body by putting good things into it! You deserve it!

What's for dinner?

It's so great to come home after a busy day, and not thinking or preparing what I'm going to make for dinner, and just put a bunch of stuff in a pot and make a yummy soup.

I went into the pantry and grabbed:
some canned tomatoes (from our garden)
some squash (from our garden)
potatoes (from our garden)

and then threw in some onions, garlic (from our friends garden), celery, some rice noodles, some leftover beans from last nights dinner, some spices, and vwaa, laa, dinner!

The rule of thumb is to shop at home first, pantry, freezer, and fridge, and use what's available. Most times you can get pretty creative and put something yummy together. Plus then you don't have to worry about running off to the store to get a missing ingredient, and it's also good for purdging through some things that might "need" to be eaten before it goes bad or freezer burned.

New colors

We don't have money to re-do the entire kitchen, so we did the next best thing, paint it with some color. We have a very small kitchen, so I was a bit afraid to do dark, but we took the plunge and painted it a deep red color. Wow! It looks better then I imagined it would.

Now of course now we need to paint the adjacent living room and dinning room so they all go together, and no they won't all be red. I'll get some pictures posted soon.

We also put in five new (from the Re-Store) light fixtures in the house to update the very outdated and ugly ones that were there. And put in a plant and rearranged the living room. It's always good to have a change once and awhile.

Garden update: The radishes, peas, lettuce and chard I put in the two cold frames have sprouted already; we put in three more fruit trees, all semi-dwarf, an apple, pear and cherry; we made a larger compost bin near the garden. And we've planned out where and how to get the "community garden" up and running.

Homeschool update: My classes I've taught to our homeschool group are coming to a close, one more week, and all the 17 kids loved learning about environmental science. I would keep teaching, but with my schedule, homeschooling at home, working part time, my community involvement, and wedding planning I think I have enough on my plate for now. The kids are excelling in their reading and are enjoying their new wildlife books. Hailey has started and is liking violin lesson and Will starts baseball in March. Wheew!

That's all for now!!

The food we eat!

Wow !
We house sat over the weekend and all I can say is, I'm glad we don't eat like most other Americans. There's a reason they call it the SAD diet. Standard American Diet. It was sort of an eye opening experience.

The family we were sitting for said we could eat food that was in the house. We each looked around the house to see what we could eat....umm....there wasn't anything. Luckily we had asked them to get us some fruit for the weekend. If being picky about what kinds of healthy food enter your body is spoiled, then I guess we're spoiled.

We looked in the pantry, all processed canned food, we looked in the fridge, again processed cheese, ugh, milk (we don't do milk), salad, oh maybe we would like that. We open it up to find iceberg lettuce with some old dried up radish type things in them, I guess that's how the store sells salad. Even the kids made a funny face at the cardboard, er, salad we had for dinner. And then I did one of those "steam in the bag" veggie mixed in the nucularizer (microwave). I felt so removed from the process it made me sad. Not to mention the limpish "steamed" veggies we ate.

I think once you grow your own food, you really can't go back to the store bought, processes, bagged stuff. I realized how proud I am of my family for eating well. And please don't think that we don't enjoy the occasional sweets and pies, in moderation of course. And we don't stress total elimination or deprivation of anything. No, my kids don't drink soda at home, but they are allowed to have some when/if we go out somewhere sometimes. I don't want them to turn into kids that go sneak soda and treats at friends' house because they are forbidden at home, just to feel a load of guilt about it later. We don't roll that way. I think the guilt would be worse for their health then the treat.

Happy eating!!!

Make wise choices...... as you pick up that food, and before it enters your mouth, ask yourself, "is this going to nurish my body?" If it's no, just lower your hand and drop the food.

Remember, if you feed your body junk, your going to feel like junk.