Cheap Like Me...on Gas

I'm thrifty.  Frugal.  Ok, you might call me cheap...

The bottom line is, I like to get the best bang for my buck, and my friends have encouraged me to share some of my tips.  So I figure I'll occasionally spotlight a way I pinch pennies, just for fun.

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I live 45-60 minutes away from 'town' where I work, depending on traffic.  So I drive a lot more than most - usually at least 600 miles per week.  Even though I drive a fairly efficient vehicle, my gas budget is still tiiiiight.

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Thrifty tip:

Download the app:

Gas Buddy

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It's an app, available for the low, low price of FREE!  It pulls up prices from gas stations all over the area, and sorts them by price or by distance (you pick).  You can even specify what grade of gas you want, or have the results displayed on a map.  It's amazing what a price range you'll find in the same area. 

For instance, the other day I stopped for gas on the way home from work.  Instead of just automatically pulling into the place closest to the office, I checked Gas Buddy, and realized that if I drove a little ways towards home and stopped to fill up at a station along the highway, I'd pay 30 cents per gallon less!  If I put 12 gallons in my car, that's $3.60 savings!  Even if the spread isn't that wide, it's still money in my pocket, and every little bit adds up.

Here's what the app looks like.  I took the screen shots while I was actually filling up this last time, so that's why it shows the Pilot is the closest.  ;) 

 

Things to remember:

1.  The app doesn't show the discounts you'd get with loyalty cards, so factor that in.  You know you'll automatically have a $0.03 discount (at a minimum) for using your Kroger card at a Kroger gas station. 

 

2.  Don't forget you can use your Kroger card at Shell gas stations too!

 

3.  Don't forget to USE the app!  Don't just download it, check it before you fill up.  :)

Sowing Bountifully

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 

2 Corinthians 9:6

Yet another busy weekend.  I’m worn out, and a little overwhelmed when I realize that the more I do on the farm, the less I seem to be getting done in other areas.  I have more than a few balls in the air, and I certainly don’t want to drop them. 

Sunday evening when we quit around suppertime, the muscles in my legs were quivering, my back was aching, my sunburn was throbbing and I was tired.  All I wanted to do was take a long bath, slather my sunburn in aloe vera and relax.  But instead, I took a shower, picked up my hamper, limped down the stairs with it and started the laundry.  Between loads, we worked on my display cases for one of my 2 side businesses, and then I put my clothes away and turned in.

I’d be proud of myself for not leaving the laundry to pile up, but my living area is still a disaster, and we won’t even talk about how long it has been since I’ve actually scrubbed the shower or run the vacuum.  I need to figure out a schedule to balance chores around the house and work on the farm. 

…And somewhere in there, I need time to work on my Scentsy business.

…And time to work on my Paparazzi business. 

…And time to go to the gym.

…And church. 

…And a little time for fun. 

 ...And of course, all this must fit into the small window of time between getting home from my full-time job and losing consciousness. 

I hope getting more organized about time management in my personal life is all I need. 

I truly believe hard work pays off, and if I put in my time now, I’ll be able to enjoy it all the more later on.  So here’s to powering through and sowing bountifully!

Oh, and an update on the garden:

The ever-evolving plan. 

We don't have the second berry bed constructed yet, and I haven't planted the berries or root veggies yet either... So it looks more like this, in reality:

The pvc pipe is a temporary fix, allowing us to drape bird-netting over the plants to keep the critters out for now.  (There is a long-term fix in the works that I'm pretty excited about)

Beans & Squash  (and soaker hose)

My little seedlings are growing up so fast!  *sniff *sniff

Cheap Like Me

I'm thrifty.  Frugal.  Ok, you might call me cheap...

The bottom line is, I like to get the best bang for my buck, and my friends have encouraged me to share some of my tips.  So I figure I'll occasionally spotlight a way I pinch pennies, just for fun.

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Americans are estimated to waste about 40% of the food we buy. (33 million tons every year!)  Even if you're clipping coupons and shopping the sales, that translates into a lot of cash.  Part of the problem is buying more than we need and not storing it properly.  Freeze it, can it, dehydrate it, ziploc it... just don't leave it sitting to rot or go stale. 

But what if you aren't sure if your food is already spoiled?  Rather than just tossing it straightaway, take a minute to check.  For example, a friend recently shared that her brand new ground beef was a little brownish in the middle and she thought that meant it had gone bad.  Not necessarily! 

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Thrifty Tip: 

Bookmark  www.stilltasty.com 

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Just type in the name of the food in question and it will tell you what's normal, what's rotten, the best way to store it, and how soon you need to do something with it.  The site has thousands of different foods (raw & cooked, open packages & unopened packages) so you'll usually find what you need.

On the site, you'll find that in most cases, ground beef that's brown in the middle is just fine, as long as it isn't showing other signs of spoilage.  It's just a lack of air that causes the color change in the middle.  So by checking www.stilltasty.com, you can save the $15 you paid for the meat... and whatever you might spend eating out because you thought your ingredients were "bad."

Down to Earth

My vision, with help from www.faceinhole.com 

(Originally a publicity photo for The Simple Life)

I had visions of being a semi-glamorous homesteader.  In my vanity and naivete, I saw no reason why I couldn't look like a lady, even if I was working like a serf.  But after this weekend, I think that ship has sailed.

1.  First of all, I now have the weirdest "farmer tan" ever.  Far, far away from my perfectly even, cultivated and maintained golden tanning-bed tan of years past, I now have a section of each arm that is burned in a blotchy strip from a defined line above my wrist (where my gloves stopped) to the middle of my upper arm where my shirt sleeve ended.  Add to that, the bright red V on my chest (why did I not wear a crew neck?!) and the red blotches on my chin, nose and the tops of my cheeks. 

2.  My legs and arms are covered in scabby scratches from the briars and thorny vines I was ripping out of trees.  (Ok, perhaps capri pants weren't the best option for outdoor work, but I was hot.  Who knew?!)

3.  I have snaggle-tooth nails, and my cuticles are beyond repair.  I don't even want to go into how long it took to get the dirt out from under my nails...  I thought the point of wearing gloves was to protect your hands!  How did the dirt even get in there???

4.  It wasn't until after the neighbors left from their visit, that I realized I had rubbed my nose while wearing my dirty gloves, so I had a very visible line of dirt on my upper lip, looking exactly like a mustache!  Quel horror! 


At work today, I've already received a variety of helpful and not-so-helpful suggestions.  For example, a suggestion from one of my male coworkers: avoid the farmer tan by just gardening in the nude... =/ Um, no.  Not likely. 

On the flip side, one friend did suggest that I affix a hook to the end of an extension pole in order to hook the vines in the trees without having to get so close to grab them and risk all the cuts.  Now that one, I think I might actually try.

In the meantime, I guess I'm in the market for some tank tops, cuticle oil, neosporin and maybe some facial cleansing cloths to keep handy in case company stops by again...


This weekend:

• Planted (most of) the beds!  Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, kale, squash, beans, cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, onions... Woohoo!
• Rigged up a watering system with soaker hoses.  More on that later.
• Marked the pretty flowering trees so we don't damage them by accident.
• Cut the (thorny, #$%@#*) vines out of the trees nearest my house site, and trimmed the lower tree branches (because I kept walking into them, and was afraid of losing an eye)

Breaking Ground

Another weekend is over, and I am exhausted.  And sore.  And sun-burnt.  But it was wonderful!

Though I don't live on our land yet, I should be there within the month, so we decided to go ahead and put in the vegetable garden.  I didn't want to wait and be sweating over my tomatoes in the worst heat of summer, if I had a choice.  So even though Saturday was my birthday (32!) and I woke up with an ugly migraine, we set to work.  And I do mean "we" since I have absolutely no abilities when it comes to construction projects or tools, and both were necessary for raised garden beds.  Thank God for Mom and Dad coming to the rescue yet again!

I read a book last year called "All New Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew.  It made sense to me - maybe because of my OCD or maybe just because I've never had a vegetable garden before and this seemed a good, logical way to start.  Yes, you read right – I’ve never even had a little veggie garden, and here I am moving out to the country… I’m just going to figure it out as I go along.  ;)  Feel free to point and laugh. 

Mom and Dad got started early making boxes, and I arrived mid-morning and picked out our spot.  We set to work using the tractor to level the land as much as possible.  The whole leveling process took a lot longer than I’d expected, but it was so important to get these started properly that it was a necessary investment in time.  Besides, I don’t think Mom minded, since she loves driving the tractor!  I did start to worry at that point that we wouldn’t be able to finish by Sunday evening though…

Once the immediate area was level, we laid out the boxes, and half-hammered nails at 12" intervals on each side, so they were sticking out a bit.  These would be used to string our gridline later.  We also laid landscape fabric underneath… and then it was suppertime.  Yes, the levelling took that.long.  My head was still pounding and it was my birthday, so we called it quits for the day.  Here’s how we left it on Saturday evening:

Sunday, we started out by attaching vertical pieces of 1" pvc pipe cut into 6" lengths onto the sides of each bed, so we could easily bend long pieces of 1/2" pvc and slide them inside the fixed larger pieces, to act as a frame for cover or netting if needed later.  (I found that idea on Pinterest and followed the link to Sunset where it was originally posted with instructions)

The book calls for the beds to be filled with "Mel's mix," which is just 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 mixed compost, and 1/3 vermiculite (by volume, not weight).  I definitely underestimated exactly how much of this mix would be required!  What an undertaking!!! 

I used a 15 liter pail to measure, putting one pail of each product in the wheelbarrow at a time, mixing it together, dumping it in a bed, and starting over.  Times about a MILLION!  (Ok, maybe not a million)  This part of the process would be easier if you could work with a team approach, or if you were strong enough to mix and wheel around 6 pails of mix instead of 3.  Alas, this weak-armed single gal had to do it the long way to begin with (I got help towards the end).  Each of the 4x4’ beds took about 6 wheelbarrow loads of Mel’s Mix, and I lost count on the larger / deeper beds.  Here's a picture of one of the many, many wheelbarrow loads involved.

As I got the boxes nearly full of mix, Dad started stringing twine in the grid pattern that separates each square foot of the beds.  (At this point, Mom was still driving the tractor around, spreading dirt beyond the garden area, to make things a little more even…or maybe just because she was having fun. haha)  The book recommends using 1” lat boards to make the grid, but we’re thinking twine is less expensive, easier to install and takes up less space.  I may regret it at some point, but this is what we’re doing for now.

Mom finally finished up on the tractor, and started helping with the mix (Hallelujah!), because it was taking foreeeeeever, and Dad pitched in toward the end as he finished up with the grids too, so I was free to spread out the mix in the beds and distribute it evenly.  

We didn’t quite finish the 12” deep bed since we ran out of Vermiculite, but the rest are done and ready for planting!  Here’s where we’re at now:

If I did it again:

-          I’d string some twine along the ground in straight lines, in order to line up the beds and keep them straight before we filled them.  I think mine are a little crooked, but hey - this is our first attempt, and I'm proud of it! 

-          If I were working alone, I’d look into a mixer attachment for the drill, so I didn’t have to work so hard mixing the compost, vermiculite and peat. 

-          I would have ideally had a second person and a second wheelbarrow, so one person could be mixing and the other person dumping the mix in the beds and spreading it out at all times. 

-          I would have done the leveling on a different day than we planned to actually put in the beds. It was really important to get it level, but it took a lot of time. 

-          I would have spread poison for the fire ants the weekend before.  I forgot how much those darn bites sting!

-          I would not leave a hoe lying on the ground where I could step on the end and bonk myself in the forehead with the handle.  Lesson learned!