It's March Somewhere

Time to catch up on nothing! A few hours remain in February and while I am watching the clock, I am mostly reflecting on how not-a-big-deal this Fru Feb was. As predicted, the last week of the month gave our budget a workout - $159.49 added to our total for a grand total of $317.51. That even included one night of take in because we were doing so well. We enjoyed a lot of lemonade, home baked bread and home made peanut butter. A lot of meatless meals. A lot of time at home around each other.  Being thankful for being in good health with working major appliances. I can't complain.

See you next year.

Valentines and Lemonade

Halfway done and still pleasantly boring! I am thinking that the dullness of this month is not so much a failure to get into the routine, but that making accommodations for Frugal February is becoming second nature now so it doesn't feel like so much work. We made almost 3 gallons of homemade lemonade for a class Valentine's party, and the boys dressed up for a wedding wearing ties sewn by me. (Truth be told, I probably would have made them anyway, because in order to get them to wear the ties, I had to offer their choice of fabric print (they both chose a Lego minifigures fabric I had bought from Spoonflower). A bovine-loving friend received a handsewn cow stuffed animal with a necklace we had left over from party favors we gave in September. I have been cutting coupons and watching sales and was showing off my "saved 40%" receipt from groceries last week. Plus we're used to eating whatever we find. Last night's dinner was chicken-bean wraps with a side of toast.

Still, we are making more exceptions than usual. We solved the issue of the 12-year-old's constant requests for money for social events, movies, lunches with friends by giving her a budget of $20 for the month. That allows her to say yes sometimes (admittedly, not very much!) but requires some thoughtful choosing of events. We were low on gas because the hubby needed to travel for work and in the past, I probably would have calculated our gas mileage and miles driven and put exactly that much gas back in the car. But we just estimated, probably generously, because though this month has been boring, running out of gas on the side of the road is not the kind of excitement I am looking for.

Groceries total to date: $158.02 (including the tween's $20 budget) but we're out of pretty much everything we had on hand so here come the bigger bills. That included $2.50 for a giant bag of Dum Dum pops to give as class Valentines (a frugal find in the regular candy aisle, *not* in the aisle with the much higher-priced Valentine's candy!) and $5 for cookies brought to a party.

The Perfect Lemonade Recipe (makes about 6 cups):

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup lemon juice

 3.5 cups water

Put 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a pot and heat until the sugar is dissolved - you'll know because the water will be clear. Add 1 cup lemon juice, then dilute with 3.5 cups water or to taste.

Day 9

Almost one third over already? That gets a woo hoo! from me. This Frugal Feb has yet to be smooth and reflective, I feel like we haven't found our frugal mojo. This week has been one of complaining, making exceptions, feeling put out and inflexible, and even forgetting entirely that it's our no-spend month. I guess some years are like this.

Grocery-wise, we are doing well. I picked up an entire quarter-pound of bulk cumin powder at the Davis Food Co-op for just over $3. We've bought milk, bread, bulk water, fresh veggies and some various things we'd run out of, for a grand total of only $42.18. I made a great vegetable soup last night mostly with stuff we had on hand, including the last of the turkey stock I made from our Thanksgiving turkey and a frozen cube of our garden basil, and thought I'd post some of my recipes this year, since "but what do you eat?" is one of the recurring questions people ask. This soup is one of our favorites, there's nothing magically frugal about this particular recipe, but soup in general is fairly inexpensive and a good healthful belly-filler, plus this one is really tasty. This recipe makes about 8 servings.

Veggie Soup (serves about 8)

1 onion
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
2 T olive oil
6 cups broth, stock, water, or a combination
15 oz can crushed or diced tomatoes
1 or 2 cans chick peas, drained
1 cup tiny pasta
2 cups cubed butternut squash
Spices/seasonings you like (I used fresh-frozen basil)
several handfuls fresh spinach
salt and pepper to taste

Dice onion, carrot and celery and saute in olive oil until soft. Add broth, tomatoes, chick peas, pasta and squash. Bring to a boil, then simmer covered for about 15 minutes - longer is OK but watch that the pasta doesn't get mushy. Add spinach and cook 5 minutes more. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a grating of fresh parmesan and some fresh bread.

So, now on to the complaining and the exceptions and all that. We are going to a social event next weekend, and I didn't manage to make sure all 5 of us would be properly outfitted for the occasion before February hit. If I had my frugal mojo on, I could beg, borrow and perhaps sew clothing made from the curtains ala Maria Von Trapp. But that ain't gonna happen. So we've had to do some shopping. Hubby forgot about no-spend month and invited a friend out for a beer. Both our big kids have been invited to birthday parties of people we haven't known long enough to explain our odd social experiment while we hand them homemade cookies. Trying to take my own advice and focus on the successes.

The good: The girl had a bunch of friends over for "late start Wednesday" breakfast and we had plenty of home made scones and lemonade for all. We ran out of eggs and our dear neighbor traded us 2 eggs for 5 lemons. I used CVS bucks for the first time in forever instead of letting them expire, thereby getting a loaf of bread for .99. Bread, from CVS? Why not. Happy Frugal February.

The Fifth Frugal February

Happy Frugal February! We began our FF #5 with the same "rules" as last year:

*$400 for groceries, taken out in cash at the beginning of the month
*Regularly recurring bills get paid (mortgage, utilities, etc).
*One full tank of gas.
*Business/commute expenses are OK.
*Gifts are accepted with gratitude but must be unsolicited.
*If you're doing to miss a deadline, don't do anything stupid in the name of sticking with the rules (like fail to sign up for preschool or book your summer vacation.)
*Little amounts on random gift cards can be used, but no cheating by loading up a card just to 'discover' it in February. CVS bucks are fair game too.

We began the month with some Frugal Fail, or at least exceptions: I had not realized when I told my daughter she could go to the school play "next weekend" that Friday was February 1. So ... filing this under the Don't Do Anything Stupid rule (like break a promise to your quick-to-weep 12 year old over 5 bucks), we allowed her to spend her own $5 on the play. We are also off to the bi-monthly Friends of the Library book sale today, scraping up $1 from the change in the car and using our Friends postcard in order to get a grocery bag full of used books.

This year should be easier in some ways: hubby and I are both on healthy eating plans with virtually no sugar or alcohol, and one of us has given up coffee. (The other of us is quite happily caffeinated while she writes this blog entry.) Then again, it's the irony of this modern life that healthful foods are often more expensive.  Keeping it simple and from scratch, however, is not, and that's the plan. We have not shopped yet, though it's only Day 3. I am out of cumin, which has brought cooking in my kitchen to a near halt - no hummus, no taco seasoning, no tamale pie, no chili, no spicy chicken with honey on rice. Co-Op bulk aisle, here I come.

Wishing everyone enough this month!