A New Year of GYPSIE CHALLENGE!!!!

Hello All,

I have fallen sadly behind in my frugality blogging. Reasons? Many. Debt? Yes. Frugal? Trying.

And so, with the approach of the new year, and all things new, I have decided to pay off my credit card in one month. Yes. And to the horror of all people out there who are private about their finances, I will disclose the amount I plan to save/pay off this month.

ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! MUah, ah, ah!!!!

This is my first financial goal of 2011, and I am totally going to rock it!!!

For those of you who were gypsies with me last year, you will remember the pain and glory of the GYPSIE CHALLENGE!

The premise is simple: spend as little as possible for the month of January.

What ever you do after that is a matter of personal preference.

I, for one, am going to embrace a pantry challenge, no eating out, and gas conservation.

If you would like to follow, and I really hope you would, just leave a comment below (you need to have a blog profile to do so, but don't worry - it's painless and quick) and let the frugality begin!!!!

It's Boring. But CHEAP.

This morning we ate slow cooker oatmeal for breakie. Not the sexiest breakfast ever, but when you are feeding three grown men, a ravenous toddler and yourself, you occasionally have to compromise with cost effective options.

I made the mistake of eating this plain once, and it almost turned me off of oatmeal forever. Just don't do it. In order to make this bowl-of-hot a success, you need to gussie it up before you even look at it close.

Luckily for me, peaches were 77 cents a pound yesterday (which is DIRTY DIRT CHEAP). So I dressed up my oatmeal with peaches, skim milk and sweet. My baby got raisins (and ate like a hungry, hungry caveman) and my man snagged himself a combination of the above.

Here is the basic recipe, which you can spice up to your liking:

Slow Cooker Oatmeal (As seen in Company's Coming)

2.5 Cups Old Fashioned Oatmeal
5 Cups of Water
1/2 tsp Salt

Mix it in  your 3.5 quart slow cooker on low overnight. That's it. And if it sounds plain it is. The onus is on you to make this cheap meal a success. (Break out the cinnamon, Compadres)

Working Girl

Yesterday and today I am filling in at my husbands work as a laborer. It's nice to be able to help him out and work with him, and it's even nicer to get a bit of extra money. He says I am a hard worker, and I have to say that's a little badge I will wear with pride. AND we got to take our coffee break together so we went on a coffee date. Oh, so nice.
So these two days have consisted of getting up, and tearing around the house getting all sorts of things done before 8am. Including dinner.
Can I just remind you how frugal and amazing it is to use your slowcooker? I mean DINNER FOR TONIGHT IS DONE! DONE!
And so cheap. So much cheaper than being exhausted at the end of the day, picking up our daughter from the sitters and then making a bad decision last minute to hit Wendy's because we are so hungry we simply cannot wait to go home and cook before we can eat.
Well, I am off to work.
Bye.

Inspiration: Sharing

Yesterday morning, with hot coffee and muffins (naturally decaffeinated green tea for me), I had the opportunity to sit down with a girl from my church and teach her a bit about budgeting and frugality. It was so great to be able to share some of the lessons I have learned with someone who wanted to make a positive change. It also helped me see how far I have personally come - sometimes I feel like because our budget is so tight, I am not doing a good job. But I am.
It was inspiring and created fresh desire in me for being frugal.
If your feeling a bit stagnant in your frugality quest, I highly recommend helping out a friend with theirs!

The Spot

In our quest for frugality, we have recently discovered a 'spot'. It's been there all along, but it was hard to see at first.

It is the point where our priorities, our self control and our budget meet.

We could, potentially live on less than that, but it would mean compromising on our priorities and a level of self control I don't personally possess (ie - eating a lot of potatoes and white rice and staying home all of the time = an unhealthy lifestyle). So we are faced with an mildly foreseen truth.

The spot rests in a slightly higher pay bracket.

We have stretched our bucks as far as we can (with the occasional relapse into spend mode that we are still trying to pay off), and now the time has come for change. I think it's important to take stock and realize when a change needs to be made. Every one can benefit from that.

So we are looking at income options for both of us that fall within these guidelines:

1) I am a stay at home mom. We desire to raise our own children, so it's ideal that if I work, it is from home.

2) Even though money is important, our marriage is MORE important, so we won't allow a situation where we don't see each other for whole days.

And after that - it's all idealism, really.

Roughing It: On The Line

During the summer months, I have been trying to line dry as much laundry as possible. I know I've written at length in the past about saving money in the laundry room, but I have just got to post about how much I am loving my little laundry line and rack in the summer sunshine on my back porch. It all started with a little pamphlet in my hydro bill. The pamphlet was offering a $75 dollar rebate to any household who could, over the course of a year, reduce their energy usage by 10%. 

As I have just acquired two male boarders, I didn't even consider their offer - my bill will be going up, not down. But some of their suggestions appealed to me; particularly the challenge to line dry our laundry. 

At first, it was a pain in my tookus. 

It takes four times as long to hang it as it does to throw it in the dryer, in addition to which we have wasps slowly taking over our back porch so the irritation of those precious minutes was compounded by wasp evasion. But as the days have turned into weeks, my daughter has started 'hep'ing mummy, which is sweet though terribly inefficient. And there is something surreal, in the very best meaning of the word, about wearing an apron in morning sunlight and hanging warm, clean smelling, damp clothing on haphazard ropes strung on your porch to the sound track of wasps wings and lawn mowers. 

As your bare feet kiss a sun warmed porch, something inside your soul just knows that it's GOOD.

Bibles For Missions SCORE

3 Pairs of Shoes.

1 Pair of Rubber Duck Boots

2 Change Pad Covers.

1 Play Pen Base Sheet.

1 Dress.

1 Onesie.

1 Sweater Vest.

1 Pink T-Shirt.

One Low, Low Price.

$3.15

Damn, I'm good.