Yummy Yoghurt

I have always been intimidated by the notion of making my own yoghurt.  Some of the recipes I found required a double boiler or candy thermometers - too complicated for this girl.  Then I happened upon a tip in Mary Hunt's, Everyday Cheapskate's Greatest Tips and it was so simple I gave it a try.  I modified it a smidge because it is winter right now and my home might be cooler than Mary anticipated.

Here are the directions: Boil two litres of milk.  Allow to sit in a cool place until it is lukewarm. Add 1 Tbsp of Danone Plain Yoghurt (I added two). Stir. Cover. Let sit over night and it's ready the next day. I put the pot on a heating pad set on low overnight.  The yoghurt was delicious!

I did the math to see what my savings were. 

Commerically prepared yoghurt generally comes in 750 gram containers (3 cups) that can range in price from $2.50-$4.50. So, per cup, store-bought yoghurt costs $0.83-$1.50 per cup.

We can purchase gallon buckets of yoghurt for $9.00, which works out to 56 cents per cup.  The only drawback is you might not be able to eat a full gallon of yoghurt before it spoils. And it takes up quite a bit of room in the fridge.

Now some good news! Here, milk costs range from $3.70-$4.99 per 4 litres (about a gallon).  So, per cup, homemade yoghurt is a  mere $0.23-$0.31 per cup.  What a huge savings for very little work.

Plain yoghurt is great for baking, smoothies, tzitziki - lots of options.  For breakfast, I like to eat it with museli.  You can add different flavourings. One of my favourites is a little vanilla extract with a pinch of stevia for sweetening.  My son likes it mixed with a little homemade strawberry jam.

It's nice to be able to control the quality of our foods - the amount of sugar, additives, thickeners, colourings.  Give it a try, it's easier than you think!

The Mighty Thrift Store!

Thrift store shopping may not be for everyone, but it is the most popular store in our town.  Every morning there are lineups to get in, and on sale days it is difficult to find parking!  True, some thrift stores require you to sort through wornout or dirty items, but the tremendous finds can definitely be worth it.

Yesterday our thrift store had a two dollar bag day sale - everything you could stuff into a plastic grocery bag for two bucks!  For $4, here is what I scooped:

- 13 pocket books
- 3 audio books on tape (we still keep an audio cassette player and VCR - tapes for these machines are virtually free)
- 3 children's books
- 3 fleece pullovers for my little guy
- 2 pullover sweaters for me
- 1 mens' shirt
- 1 fancy sweater for my daughter
- 1 lace top for my daughter

So, 27 items for $4.00! That's 15 cents an item!!
Some of these purchases will find their way under the Christmas tree.  My kids, particularly my oldest, are into recycling and 'green' living.  Reducing, reusing and recycling are virtues in our home, which makes gift giving a little easier.  I try to find high quality items that suit my child's needs and tastes. Some items will be bought new, but many are homemade or thrift store finds.

I encourage you to check out your local thrift and consignment stores!

Karin's Minestrone

One way to cut grocery bills is to increase the amount of soup in your diet.  Perhaps serve soup before the main course to decrease the amount of meat required by your family. Or have a soup night with homemade bread - yum.  Years ago, my friend, Karin, gave me her Minestrone recipe and it is superb.  This makes quite a large volume. I use glass one litre canning jars to freeze it - just be careful not to fill them too full or the glass jar will break (experience speaking!)

Karin's Minestrone

Saute: 2 cloves of garlic, 2 chopped onions, 1 cup of chopped celery in a Tablespoon of cooking oil until tender

Add: 2 cups of diced carrots, 2 cups of shredded cabbage, 2 (19oz) cans of tomatoes with liquid, 10 cups of beef stock, 1 cup of chopped parsley, 1 tsp each of salt and pepper.  Cover and simmer 20 minutes.

Add 2 cups of dry noodles, 2 cups of chopped zucchini, 6 cups of canned kidney beans (undrained), 4 cups of cooked hamburger.  Simmer ten minutes more or until noodles are cooked.

Serve garnished with parmasan.

* If you are freezing the soup, add the zucchini and noodles to the container uncooked. Otherwise both will be very mushy when you reheat to serve.

Instead of tracking all your expenses....

We've all heard that one good way of getting a handle on where we can eliminate unnecessary expenditures is to track every penny we spend for three months.  I've done it, and while it was an interesting exercise, there weren't a lot of surprises for me. It was a lot of work tracking every expense and hounding other family members to keep receipts.

I came across a very sensible alternative in "Grow Your Money - 101 Easy Tips to Plan, Save, and Invest" by Jonathan D. Pond. He offers three strategies for saving.

The Platinum Strategy: Focus on saving rather than on what you are spending.  By socking more funds away than you are currently, you will automatically be aware of how you are spending and where you can make cuts. Gradually increase the amount you are regularly putting away into savings.

The Gold Strategy: "If you are starting from scratch, start small". He recommends starting with 1% of your salary or $20 per week, and once you are accustomed to that, increase the amount.  Just be faithful and consistent to your savings plan.

The Silver Strategy: Pay with cash.  If you can't save, being aware of every expenditure by using cash will open your eyes as to where your money is going.

I think conversion to a frugal lifestyle comes down to living in the moment - being AWARE of what we are doing with our time and money, how we are feeling when we spend, what our hopes and dreams are for the future and how the NOW affects the future.  How often do we mindlessly hand over our credit card and not even check the total of our bill?  It's like we are on automatic pilot. Living a life in the moment, with full awareness, is its own reward.  Let's be present in our own lives.

The Secret of Youth

I have a four-year-old.  This in itself is not a secret of youth. In fact, factoring in years of sleep deprivation and the exhaustion of answering the same question a gazillion times a day, it's a wonder I don't look like Methuselah. At 48, some people might think I am his grandma while others think I must be younger than I am to have this little tyke. 

Jake decided to take the mystery out of his mother's age by announcing in the church kitchen that his mother was 69 years old.

So there you have it. Inflate your age by two decades plus.  I look FABULOUS for 69!

A Million Rubber Duckies Can't be Wrong

There are few greater pleasures in life than soaking in a steamy bath at the end of an exhausting day - unless you combine it with chocolate, a mystery novel and then crawling into clean sheets!  Still, I wondered if this was a luxury that I was going to have to forego in my quest to cut expenses.  I went onto the web to find out how much energy was required to heat a gallon of water, then dug out my natural gas bill. Once I did all the mathematical conversions, I brought my 4 gallon pasta pot into the tub with me to determine just how much hot water I required which was twenty-four gallons.

Since I do not have metered water, my only expense for a hot bath is the cost to heat the water and I don't use any bath products other than a bar of ivory soap.  Much to my shock and everlasting gratitude, soaking my weary bones is a mere 7 cent expenditure!   Hard to find a better value for $0.07!

To get the best use of this hot water, I leave it in the tub until morning, allowing it to humidify the dry winter air as well as add additional heat to the upstairs.  I don't have toddlers or pets who might stumble into it, so it isn't a safety concern.

Granted, I am aware that all the water that comes out of my tap has had to be treated in a water treatment plant, and one should be mindful of the pressures one puts on the community water supply. So as much as I would like to have a hot soak every winter night, I won't.  Still, I am grateful that when I choose to, I won't break the bank!

The Mortgage (gulp!)

If you are like me, the moment you hear financial jargon, your eyes glaze over and a nap looks really appealing.  Fortunately, this is not the case for my husband - thank goodness!  His knowledge of how banks work, and mortgages in particular, has saved us thousands of dollars.

One very straightforward book you might like to investigate is, "How to Rob Your Bank - Perfectly Legal, Insider Tips to Save Money on Your Mortgage" by Scott T. Peckford (ISBN 978-0-9867170-0-0).  It explains the ins and outs of negotiating a good mortgage for YOU in language that is really accessible. It's less than 100 pages and a really easy read.

Yes, hanging your laundry, turning out lights, and recycling sandwich baggies are all ways to get your finances under control and more money in your pocket. But if you are in a sinking ship, plugging the pin holes when water is gushing in through open port holes is not the most sensible rescue plan.

This book may help you save thousands of dollars and I encourage you to explore your options - Good Luck!

Exercise

Exercise - we all need it.  And we KNOW we need it. The costs of not taking care of ourselves are high in terms of physical limitations, discomfort and health care expenses. We may not notice so much when we are younger, but trust me, after forty the body doesn't respond in quite the same forgiving way it might have in our twenties and thirties. So, the question is, how do we fit exercise into our lives and at a cost we can afford?

I researched the cost of gyms in our area and they range from $32 to $60 per month, or averaged just shy of $400 per year.  That's a pretty big chunk of change if you don't make regular use of the facilities.

Home gyms tend to be very good at collecting dust or serving as a clothes rack.  They take up space and rarely are worth the investment for the average person.  But if you really think that's the way to go, check out craigslist, a garage sale or some other second hand sales option and purchase a machine at a fraction of the original price.

I am a fan of home workout dvds.  Well, not ALL dvds.  Being abnormally uncoordinated has ruled out most aerobic tapes because I just end up flailing about my family room and risking serious injury to me, the furniture or the cat! However, I can heartily recommend Leslie Sandsone's walking tapes. She uses four basic steps (walking, side steps, knee lifts and kicks) and if you give it a good effort, you will break a sweat and get a good workout. Many of her tapes also can use weights, although they are not necessary. She has oodles of tapes and you will likely find many of them available at your local library.

I found a fitness buddy on the web that I connect with and to whom I am accountable.  If I promise someone else that I will workout, then I do it. Matter of honour.  Wish it worked more when I promised myself!

Car free days

With a preschooler in tow, I find that I have to use the car three days per week to get him to activities that are too far from home to walk.  In order to save $$, I have decided that those two days per week that don't require driving will be CAR FREE DAYS.  Not so much fun for me walking to the Rec. Centre in the pouring rain but Jake loved catching raindrops on his tongue and splashing in the puddles.   So, I saved fuel, kept out of the grocery store and made a memory with my boy. All in all, a successful day :)