Grocery Budget Challenge

I’ve been dabbling in budgeting. I say “dabbling” because every time I make out a budget I blow it. Go figure. Well, I decided that with the holidays coming up (ie. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years) I should make a practice run with my grocery budget. I have (for no other reason than that’s what I came up with) $180 for a family of 4 (that includes myself and 3 teenage boys). Possible? I guess we’ll see. I’m challenging myself to stick to this and I’ll record my progress here on Learning 2 Live 4 Less. It starts today and I’ll run this for a month – December 10th will be my verdict day.

Day 1

Stopped at Wal-Mart on the way into work to pick up the following:

20 oz Coke $1.38
24 pk Wally world Water $3.98
Great Value Creamer (big container) $3.86
Banquet Chicken Steak Microwave dinner $1.00
Banquet Sweet & Sour Chicken Microwave Dinner $1.00
Croissants Baker reduced $1.50
Great Value Applesauce cups $1.56
Great Value Nonfat Dried Milk $16.42

Total $30.70
Balance $149.30


This trip was spontaneous so I didn’t plan it too well. I needed lunch for the day and for tomorrow. The water is a staple at our house. As for the Nonfat Dried Milk? Oh let me tell you it’s my favorite ingredient to have. Before you say ooo and gross. Let me let you in on my secret. Ok It’s not MY secret but I learned it and live by it. I even have a cheat sheet on the side of the refrigerator to refer to. We go through a ton of milk in our house. The boys still drink it like they did when they used Sippy cups. I save the so called “good” stuff for their drinking and cereal use and then fall back on my powered milk substitutes for cooking, baking, and a few little recipes that the boys love. These included Magic Milkshakes, vanilla milk, and even Hot Cocoa Mix. My favorite site for quick, inexpensive recipes www.hillbillyhousewife.com is a great resource for some do it yourself home concoctions. The point I started with was why I buy powered milk. While it’s not our first choice for drinking, it does come in handy when we run short or a freak ice storm lands like it did last year. Plus, a gallon of milk runs about $ 3.50 maybe $2.89 on sale these days (prices may vary by region ) The box I bought today makes 80 quarts or 20 gallons of milk. Roughly broke down means for less than a dollar ($0.821) a gallon I would save more than enough to justify the hassle of using the powdered version. Again, we still buy good old fashion milk but this is a great addition to stretch our dollar.



Back to my original posting topic: I need to do some grocery shopping tonight and I’ll let you know how I do. I don’t have the first coupon to use (shame on me) but I am going to our discount grocery store because well, I always shop there.  I’m off to make a list and get what we need. First I’m going to do some recipe surfing then list making. Wish me luck!

Everything's coming up...Sunflowers

My oldest son decided to plant a "few" sunflowers this year on the edge of the veggie garden. Well his few turned into about 10 and they grew better than the veggies.

I've noticed them growing but all of a sudden they seem HUGE! They are close to being taller than our house. I have mixed feelings about them because I love looking at them when I come home but I can't wait to pop some of those delicious sunflower seeds in my mouth!

For about 89 cents, he's got a ton of sunflowers already and they haven't all bloomed yet. With less than a $1 investment he'll be able to eat sunflower seeds for a year or more!

And so it begins!

I've got a bug up my butt! The bug is that I want the best of both worlds. I love me some technology; after all, I'm a tech major. I love my modern comforts such as a/c and heat, water heaters, lights, my gas guzzling 4 wheel drive. At the same time, I've also adjusted myself to living on a farm. While its not a fully working farm its land and trees and fields and lots of space. I've enjoyed raising a few Buffs (thems chickens), I've raised a garden and canned/froze food for the winter and even dabbled in making freezer jelly. I'm finding myself wanting MORE of this. More of the homesteader ways but I don't want to lose touch with reality so to speak. I have to work. I'm the sole provider for our family, plus I'm addicted to the Internet besides I'm working on my degree and need Internet access for classes.

So my new mission in life is to figure out how to do both without going crazy, broke, or without my spoiled comforts. I've started without even realizing it by having my few chickens, raising a garden and preserving the food for winter, and of course setting up home wireless network. Yes, the last sounds like spoil but I can now take my laptop anywhere around the house to look up recipes and direction on living a simple life. Now that's funny. Homesteading as I'm learning is not easy at all. Well not at first anyway. The baby steps I've taken I did without really realizing it so they didn't seem so hard at all. Now that I'm attempting to do this with planning ahead of time, it seems quite overwhelming. But baby steps will be how it goes.

My next big project is going to be attempting to build a wind turbine to help with the electricity. I found an awesome site that actually has a "how to build your own" step by step guide. I'm going to give it a go and see how I do. Hopefully I won't 1. burn down the house and 2. be without electricity. Intitally I plan to use it to supplement our electric and not completely disconnect from the grid. But I would love to be able to eventually sell excess power to the local electric company for a supplimental income. Yes these are big dreams but I would like to at least attempt a small wind turbine to help us out on our ever increasing electric bill.

So why this blog? Well, while I've been researching different methods for different things, I've found a ton of radical homesteading sites. Some of these are a big too extreme for me at the moment so I decided to make my own and keep track of my progress. (This also keeps me accountable for my homesteading movement.) So here it goes!

Long term goal: research and build a small home wind turbine (without burning the house down)
Short term goal: get the corn picked, shucked and put up for winter. Find some black berries and learn to make jam.

Thats all I'm starting with for now. Baby steps right? Wish me luck!