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By Penny, February 22, 2010 6:13 am

A decorated table for a fancy dinner at home.

Under a tight budget, people believe that they can’t go out and have fun.  Maybe the “going out” part might be impossible, but really, how much fun is “going out”? You can’t get exactly what you want, when you want it. You often have to wait in line, wait for someone to bring your food, and then wait for them to bring the check.  The food is rarely worth all the effort. The important part of going out is the company, so why not bring the company in?  Have a dinner party!

1.       Don’t be afraid to make “poor food.”  Soups, beans, stews and pastas are all delicious and budget friendly.  Most people do enjoy that kind of home cooking.  For guests, I made a ham and bean soup with fried hoe cakes and homemade peach jam.

2.       Be creative with meals. Fried eggs, scrapple, and biscuits make a lovely breakfast for dinner. Bake pizza crusts ahead of time and have the guests help with topping them.  Better yet, make each person a small crust of their own. 

3.       Ask the guests to contribute something. Majority of folks ask if they can bring something.  We’ve been conditioned to instantly say “no, of course not!”  Instead, ask them what they might like to bring that would complement your meal or what their specialty is. When people ask, they do want to bring something, they just need some direction. This weekend, I told my friend to bring vegetables to dinner.

4.       Have fun with table decorations. I’m not suggesting that you go out and buy something, but it is fun to decorate the table with something as simple as a table cloth or a vase of flowers from the garden.  Decorations can make the dinner feel special.

5.       Choose “theme” meals.  I’ve been known to make Chinese, Indian or Thai themed meals. Now, are they as good as “authentic” meals? Probably not. However, they are tasty all the same! There are about a gajillion different recipes available online. (yes, I’m aware that’s not an actual number, but I’m using hyperbole here)

6.       Your slow cooker is your friend. No, seriously, it is! There is no rule that says you have to make a labor intensive meal to impress the tar out of your friends.  Make the day less stressful on you and use a tasty slow cooker recipe. If you feel funny about serving straight from the cooker, you can put the food in a dish or bowl for the table.

7.       Choose one part of the meal to emphasize. By making one part of the meal the focal point, the rest of the meal can be fairly simple.  For instance, bake your own bread for the pasta, but don’t worry about making a complicated side dish. The meal will seem elegant and all parts will be able to stand together without competition.

We often have people over for dinner; as of late, it has been three times or more a week.  These tips are things that I do, sometimes, though the theme meals not as regularly. The meal is mostly about sharing fellowship with people you care about, not about the food.   The important thing for you to remember is that your friends are just that because they like you, not because they are after your cooking. 

Does anyone else have some suggestions for dinner parties? Favorite recipes? Tips?

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By Penny, February 3, 2010 4:26 am

Laundry Soap

1/3 bar of laundry soap ( I use a homemade soap that I barter eggs for, but Crystal from The Family Homestead sells a lovely laundry soap here  Any soap will do, though.)

½ cup borax

½ cup washing soda (NOT baking soda!)

Grate soap into a saucepan. Add soda and borax, stirring until the soap is dissolved.  Remove from heat.  Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket.   Now add your soap mixture and stir.  Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.  Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel.  You use about ½ cup per load.

Here’s the pictorial:

The directions say use a sauce pan, but I just use my stainless steel mixing bowl. I assure you, the matching ensemble was accidental.

Grate the soap. You could whirl it in a food processor, but I hate cleaning the blasted thing and would rather hand grate for just a small amount like that.

Here's all the ingredients together.

Mix the ingredients completely until the shredded soap melts.

Add water to the pan you're going to keep it in. I just use a dishpan that I keep on the dryer.

Add the soap mixture, stirring constantly

add the rest of the water, and You're done!

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By Penny, February 2, 2010 4:53 am

This month is the first month where I am carefully recording our harvest, preservation, and budget progress.  It is my hope that I will be diligent in continuing to keep accurate records.  Record keeping is an important part of pursuing and achieving goals.

For the month of January, we:

Found $90 for a snowflake to the credit card.

Canned 31 quarts and 12 pints of food.

Harvested 15 ducks and 5 geese

Butchered one deer.

Collected 182 eggs.

Corned 8lbs of venison.

Traded six dozen eggs for soap.

All told, I think we have made considerable progress in our goal of being debt-free and self-reliant.

For the month of February, we hope to start spinach and kale in our cold frame, start planning our garden, order seeds, baking snack foods instead of buying them and refinance our mortgage, to save about $100/month in mortgage payments.  I’ll keep you posted!

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By Penny, January 20, 2010 4:00 am

Lacking a picture for the topic, here's a gratuitous picture of my mom's dogs.

I once heard someone on an inane decorating show say that curtains are the eyebrows of a room. *Snort, polite cough*

Far be it for me to argue with the champions of home décor, but I find I must in the name of practicality and frugality.
Curtains are practical tools in regulating a home’s temperature, or at least they were up until the latter part of the 20th century. Somewhere along the way, it has become far more fashionable to use them as accessories to impressing guests instead of their original purpose. Now, folks just crank up the air conditioner and heater as the weather demands, paying the inevitable bill for such largess, all the while bemoaning high energy costs. However, you can buck this trend by taking your curtains by the rods, as it were.

Invest in some lined curtains, preferably of brocade or other heavy fabric. Lose the miles of lace and gauze, as they are about as useful as a drink umbrella in a hurricane. Yes, lined curtains will be expensive, but note the use of the word “invest.” If you use them properly, you will recoup the cost of them fairly quickly. Furthermore, you might be able to sew them yourself, depending on how fancy you want them.
Make sure you are able to open and close them. The mobility of the curtains is absolutely crucial to their purpose. It is important that they are on a rod, able to be opened and closed as necessary.
In the winter, leave the curtains open during the day. Doing so will allow the sunlight to heat the room. At night, close them so that the heat is not dissipated during the lower night temperatures.
In the summer, close the windows and the curtains in the morning before the temperature begins to rise. It seems contradictory to leave the windows closed in the heat, but, with the curtains drawn, the temperature will not rise too much. Use fans to circulate the air. In the afternoon, once the outside temperature is cooler than the inside temperature, open the windows and the curtains. Use box fans to draw in cooler air. In the event you are not quite ready to forego air conditioning, just follow the instructions for the curtains.
Be creative about their placement. Sometimes there are doorways to spaces you don’t use too often in your home. Why pay to heat the laundry room if you don’t have to? In my home, we don’t use the upstairs overly much during the cold winter months. As such, we hang a heavy curtain over the doorway to the stairs, removing it once the weather becomes warmer.

Most assuredly, I will never win any awards for my home decorating skills. However, my home is comfortable year-round with little excess use of energy. Eventually, the pennies that I save on energy will help us to buy our little farm, which is a far more satisfying than being a home décor diva. Besides, in keeping with the analogy of eyebrows, the room would have to have eyes and that’s just creepy.

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By Penny, January 12, 2010 4:49 am

I am notorious for procrastinating. It has been a habit since childhood. I had a bit of an epiphany as to why, but I will blog about that later. However, here is what it cost me this time.

To put it mildly, I have not always been diligent with going through my paperwork, such as bills and mail. I would like to be able to say that it was from being displaced due to the fire, but, alas, these snafus are from well before the fire.

During my cleaning blitzkrieg, I went through boxes of paper work from my bedroom. There were bills which needed paying, which was no surprise. However, I found a $50 check from over-paying my mortgage fees. From my last house! It was from May of 2008. The worse one was a $100 check lodged in a wedding card. We were married on June 14, 2008, so, needless to say, that check was well past its due date, as it were.

In order to try and salvage the situation, I did a few things. I called the number on the check from Wells Fargo. They said they would reissue it, and it arrived in the mail today. Unfortunately, the wedding check did not turn out as well. I called the gift giver, to let him know that I had found the check and would be destroying it. He didn’t volunteer to send a new one, so I will be surprised to see a replacement.

Final Score:
Penny-50
Procrastination- 100
Procrastination kicks my butt, yet again. Sigh