A Year of Savings - bulbs

Bulbs are a great way to have seasonal flowers. We got all our bulbs from my mother-in-law. I am not an expert but I understand than bulbs reproduce after they are planted and have to be split up and replanted every so often. So once you have a few bulbs, they will grow in to lots of plants to spread around your yard and to share.

Irises are one of my favorite flowers.

I grew up in a little town in East Texas. Most of our neighbors had nice yards and gardens. The prettiest yard belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Wright. They lived across the street from our church and just a couple of blocks from our home. Their front yard was planted with dozens of rows of irises.

Mr. and Mrs. Wright were never cranky when little girls needed to get a close-up look of their flowers either.

The story of my KA mixer

First, I will apologize for this tiny picture but I am sure my children would prefer it was even smaller.

Nina has been talking about her new KitchenAid mixer on her blog, she thinks hers is better than my old one but I disagree.

I have been baking since my early teens and a good mixer is so important to have. I got a nice Sunbeam mixer at a bridal shower in 1980. I used it lots but it lasted about 10 years.

In 1990, we were living aboard Camp Pendleton. Jeff was on Okinawa for a 6 month unaccompained tour. I stayed busy with my own children and babysitting neighbors children. When my neighbor Cheryl Trahan, wanted to go see her Marine husband while his MEU was in Hong Kong, I agreed to babysit her daughters, Beth and Vanessa, for the 10 days she would be gone. She paid me $600 as well as taking us to Costco for all the groceries and paper plates we would use those 10 days and she brought us some great gifts from Hong Kong.

I used $300 of that money to buy a Kitchen Aid mixer at K-Mart in San Clemente, California. If you look real close, you can see the mixer in the cart behind Vanessa.

I have no idea why I took this dorky picture in the K-mart parking lot, back then people did not do scrapbooking or blog, I guess it was just for proof that these 5 children could all have a good time and behave on a shopping trip.

I am still using this very Kitchen Aid mixer. I have used it almost everyday since then for cookies or cake or mashed potatoes or bread dough. If only everything lasted as long as this Kitchen Aid!

A year of Savings -Container gardening

We have never been too successful growing things to eat but we are giving it a go this year. I collected an assortment of pots and filled them with tomato, pepper and eggplant plants.

I bought the plants at Lowes and used a $10 off $25 purchase.

I hope they all grow!

1950s Sponge Cake

I have made this recipe twice recently, once we had it for the cake in Strawberry Shortcake and the second time we had it topped with lemon glaze. Both times it was delicious.

This recipe calls for just 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 eggs. It is similar, but better, than the sponge cake dessert cups sold with strawberries at the grocery store.

from the 1950 edition of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book

Inexpensive Sponge Cake

Generously grease and flour 8 inch square pan or 12 muffin cups

Preheat oven to 350.

2 eggs

Beat with a mixer or rotary beater until very light.

1 Cup sugar

1/4 t salt

1 tsp flavoring, I used vanilla but lemon or butter extract would be good too

Beat in

1 T butter melted in 1/2 Cup very hot milk I heated them in the microwave

carefully beat in to sugar and egg mixture.

1 Cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

add to wet ingredients, stir together quickly and immediately pour into prepared pan. Bake until cake tests done.

28-35 minutes for cake

18-20 minutes for cupcakes.

Betty suggest to serve it fresh with fruit like berries, bananas and peaches, top with whipped cream.

A Year of Savings - store rewards

None of the grocery stores in my town have reward or membership cards but I do use a reward card at Famous Footwear and Staples.

Famous Footwear sends me a $5 coupon on any purchase at least 4 times a year and they send bigger coupons if I buy more shoes there.

Today I used 2 $5 coupons at Famous Footwear and got 12 pairs of socks for just $2.18.

My office uses a lot of ink cartridges in our printers and I take the empty ones to Staples for recycling. They used to give a $3 gift certificate on the spot for each cartridge turned in. They have recently changed their policy and now they allow 3 cartridges a day and the $3 for each one gets rolled to your quarterly reward. This is still a good deal but the reward is not as quick.

Saturdays bargains

I bought groceries this morning at Food Pyramid because they had a $10 off $50 purchase coupon for today only. On my way there, I stopped at 2 garage sales. Neither one had much that I wanted but I did spend $2 for these 2 cases of portion cups and lids. I am pretty sure that Nina, my mom and mother-in-law will all want some. They will be great for Jeff's lunch box too.
This is part of my Walgreens purchase. The Suave deal was buy 4 Suave and get a $6 Register Reward. I had $1/2 coupons for the Sauve as well.
The Northern is a great price, $4 for 6 super-big rolls. I got 30 rolls total so I guess we won't have to buy any toilet paper for awhile.

I bought my items in 3 transactions and also got Loreal lipstick B1G1F and some Bliss candy.

I have not added up my CRTs but I did not spend much on all this

Sewing projects

One of my resolutions for 2008 is to sew up a lot fabric that I have had a for a while. I wanted to sew last night and found this cute dog print. It is red printed with black and white hearts and bones. I had enough to make a kerchief for Theo.
I wanted to use up all that fabric and had just enough to make 3 more kerchiefs,

a small one for Bobby and Bridgette's Fletch

a medium one for brother Rex's Boomer

and a really big one for Nina and John's Zerbie.

I made 6 criss cross potholders a few weeks ago. Nina took 2. They especially match her kitchen because the black check fabric is leftover from her kitchen curtains.

A Year of Savings - air drying clothes

It's has been a while but I plan on posting some new year of savings ideas.

I don't have an outdoor clothes line for several reasons.

One is because the wind blows so hard and constant in Oklahoma that laundry could easily disappear. (And losing your laundry is certainly not a frugal)

Another is because I am not fond of the stiffness that line-dried laundry has. Most people that line-dry their laundry love the fresh-air smell it takes on too. But I just don't like the way it smells.

Clothes dryers can be very hard on clothes and are expensive to run.

I use a happy-medium that works for us.

Most laundry gets put in the dryer for about 10 minutes and then I hang the clothes on hangers in doorways to finish drying. Smaller things and sweaters finish drying on a rack. Running them in a dryer for a few minutes really seems to help avoid wrinkles and add some softness.

Jeans usually get started on the drying rack, then I put them in the dryer for a few minutes to soften them.

Towels and sheets get the full drying cycle.

A year of savings - recipes from the 50's

I planned to make a cake from a Martha Stewart recipe for supper last night. I had picked out a Lemon Cake that sounded good and has good reviews. It just makes one layer and I prefer to make smaller desserts when cooking for just Jeff and I. But as I read the recipe closer, I noticed it called for 3 whole eggs and 3 egg whites.

It seems to me that most "new" recipes use more expensive ingredients. Whenever Paula Deen or the Barefoot Contessa make a dessert, they seem to always start with several sticks of butter.

So I pulled out my 1950's Betty Crocker cookbook. I found a recipe for Light Golden Cake and baked it. It only called for 1 egg and 1/3 cup shortening. It tasted great too.

1950 style Light Golden Cake

grease and flour a 9 inch square pan

sift together

1 1/2 Cups flour

1 Cup Sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

add

1/3 cup shortening

pour in a little over half

2/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

beat 2 minutes.

add remaining milk and

1 egg
Beat 2 minutes

Pour into prepared pan and bake until cake tests done. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Cool and finish with frosting.

I topped ours with a homemade glaze,

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp milk

Heat together in a glass measuring cup until melted

add 1 tsp vanilla and enough powdered sugar to make a glaze. I used about 1 cup of pow. sugar.

This yellow cake may be a bit smaller than the Lemon Cake I first planned. But it costs considerably less and probably has fewer calories too.

I left this cook book on the counter and will be planning more menus with recipes from it soon.

Use what you have - Sit down dinner for a group

Our house has 2 dining areas. One is small breakfast nook and the other is a medium size formal dining area. Neither is big enough for a large dining table. When all our kids are home, we need seating for at least 9, and sometimes more.

I would prefer to have one big table but what works for us it is bring the breakfast room table in and set it beside the table in the formal dining room. You can't tell it from the picture but the small table is almost in the front foyer.

It is not perfect but we all can sit together and it works good enough.

Late spring freeze

It is late in the year but we had a freeze last night. Since our plants are already green and starting to form buds, we covered them to keep them from getting freeze damage. We used an assortment of older sheets and tablecloths.

The neighbor girls thought we wacky when we spreading out all this fabric. I was very surprised that none of our neighbors covered their plants as most of them are much more serious about having the perfect yard than Jeff and I are.

Theo thought all these sheets in the front yard were wacky too.

The sheets did their job. When I uncovered everything this morning, the sheets were frosted over but there was no frost damage on any of the covered plants.

Squash casserole and banana pudding

My parents are visiting so this seemed like a great time to make some Southern favorite recipes. Tonight our dessert was made from scratch banana pudding.
I made this Yellow Squash Casserole for the first time. I was inspired to make this because Nina's blog is featuring yellow squash this month. The casserole was great, the only thing I will change the next time is to bake it in a smaller pan. I used a 9x13 as specified in the recipe but the casserole was pretty thin, I think an 8 or 9 inch casserole would work better.

I think these white casserole dishes are so pretty. I told Nina that I would be looking at garage sales for some covered dishes and she offered to let me "borrow" some of her extras. She got 2 huge sets of Corning bakeware for wedding gifts and these were not needed by the newlyweds right now. I will be using them often.

$100 of groceries

I set a $100 weekly household spending budget for myself at the first of this year. With grocery prices rising so fast, it continues to be a challenge but so far, I am pretty close to my goal. I added up all my spending for the year and my weekly average actually comes to $112 but I am pretty happy with that.
I bought groceries Thursday and this is what I got. This is my actual list and what I bought.


quilt magazine for my secret sister at church $5.39
a birthday card for Jeff's sister (she would not like my normal homemade cards) .94
yellow squash this was all bruised and I did not buy any, I need it for the veggie challenge and will look for it at Food Pyramid
one head lettuce 1.44
tomatoes - about 2 pounds 1.43
potatoes 5 pounds red and 10 pounds russet 1.98 and 3.47
carrots 2 pounds 1.38
bananas 1.09 2.32 pounds at .47 per pound
apples $1.62 Braeburns, 1.72 pounds at .94 a pound
fruit that might look esp. good and a good deal
8 pounds orange for 5.12
5 pounds grapefruit for 2.50
frozen vegetables - corn, broccoli, 2 bags or so each 3.97
frozen orange juice 4 1.43 each
Clorox one "gallon" jug 1.28
milk 1 gallon 2.89
3 dozen eggs 6.68!
2 pounds real butter 4.56
4 cans peaches in juice 16 ounce cans got 1 gallon can for 4.68
2 bottles salad dressing 3.52
coconut 1 bag 1.48
flour 5 pounds 1.58
pancake syrup 1.58
assorted canned tomatoes - paste, diced, stewed and pureed- total $6.40
bread - I do have a free coupon 2.78 and used coupon so free
hamburger buns 1.18
pepperoni - 1 bag hopefully the turkey kind they did not have these but got a bag of sliced pepper cheese as a substitute for 2.38
2 pounds sharp cheddar 7.98
sliced cheese 2.88
Mozzarella cheese - probably a 2 pound bag 7.36
Vlasic relish, used 2 $1 coupons, .12 a jar

sales tax was $8.41

my total was $101.41

I already had enough meat in the freezer so did not need to buy any. Most of our household and personal products have been bought at Walgreens sales.

Is inflation causing changes in your spending? I would love to hear how you are coping.

My biggest change is no impulse buying and cooking basic foods with not a lot of frills. For example, I baked 3 batches of cookies for our weekend guests, I made oatmeal cookies, snicker doodles and no-bake oatmeal fudge cookies. All 3 recipes are made from basics like flour, sugar, butter, eggs, oatmeal, cocoa and peanut butter instead of more expensive ingredients like nuts, flavored chips, baking chocolates

Garber Dinner Theater - Wynn Fairly, Champeen Rassler

Twelve from my family went to the Garber Dinner Theater Saturday night. We had a great dinner of veggies and dip, green salad, brisket and ham with potatoes, green beans, hot rolls and lemon cake with sauce.
This is my Aunt Evelyn, Uncle Rex, brother Bert, Dad, Mom, and Lorraine, my uncle's girlfriend. Nina, John, Jimmy, my brother Rex, Jeff and I sat at another table.

Garber plays are not Jimmy's favorite thing so he spent part of the evening with his magazine.
The play was about a dirty "rassler" (wrestler if you don't speak Okie) and his crooked manager.

This is Tara Boneaparte, the manager, Rowdy Ruthless and his vamp sister, Evileen Ruthless.
These were the good characters - Wynn Fairly the wrestler, his girlfriend, Doe Ramey and the undertaker, Mort Ripley.
Bertha deBlooze and her husband.
This play was told like it was radio show in the 1930's. Yes, it was just as corny as the pictures look, but it was lots of fun.

Thanks to my son-in-law John who took most of these pictures. He has been taking a photography class and I think it must be a really good class. Most of these pictures were taken in the dark without a flash.

Michael and Amy - Dueling Pianos

We were fortunate to attend the Michael and Amy Dueling Pianos show last night at our local community center. Our tickets were a fringe benefit from my husband's employer.

Michael and Amy are "two multi-talented, musical and comedic entertainers who also happen to be husband and wife. Mix in an eclectic blend of musical genres from Beethoven to Billy Joel, Gershwin to Garth, Andrew Lloyd Weber to AC/DC. Add a dollop of improvisational comedy topped off with a heaping helping of audience interaction and participation. Dish it all up on two unsuspecting grand pianos for one hilarious and unforgettable serving of what we like to call - Quirkish-Delight! People are eating it up all over the world!"

They live in NYC and travel all around for shows. We loved their show and would love to see them again.

Nina's latest cake

Nina and her most recent cake.

(Sorry, Nina, I know you don't like this picture but I think you are so cute!)
My mom, A.K.A RoRo, and Nina

Nina brought over a cake last night for our supper. It was delish! This one is white cake with lemon curd filling and lemon meringue buttercream icing.

The rest of our menu was not nearly as fancy as our dessert though,

sloppy joes with cabbage and oven fried potatoes.

rummage and thrift store finds

My parents are here for a visit and the first thing we did this morning was go to that rummage sale I mentioned yesterday. Mom and I were a little disappointed as the selection was not as good as in years past but I think we got some really good deals anyway. After the rummage sale, we came back to my home for a bit. Then we had lunch at Panera with Nina and then we went to 4 thrift stores.

My dad got the best deals today. He got this nice athletic suit at a thrift store. It was brand new with the tags still attached. At the rummage sale, he got 3 pairs of slacks, exactly his size and inseam, also all brand new with the tags still attached.

Here are some of my sack fillers - 8 brand new Christmas napkins and 2 clay pot saucers. I think they are very cute all painted up like Santa but I plan on doing some gardening this summer and will probably just use them under some pots.
4 books for Jeff, a coloring book, clipboard to decoupage, peppermint printed bags to put lawn candles in for Christmas.
a few assorted shirts for Jeff and myself, they don't show up too good but my favorite buy is some brand new black flip flops with flowers on them.
Candy molds and books for Nina
This is all Aida cloth, for counted cross stitch. The pieces are long and not wide though so they will only work for small or long projects. I have not measured them but I think they are all 14 count.

I think we did great. I don't know how much my parents spent but I only spent $3.

My daughter's new blog

Nina has started a new blog celebrating vegetables. As her mother, this is really funny to me because none of my kids were crazy about eating their vegetables. They all liked fruit but only happily ate plain vegetables like potatoes and green beans.

I like most all vegetables so maybe I will learn some new ways to serve them.

Vindicate the Vegetable

My absence and what I've been up to

Our home computer has been out of whack so I have pretty much been only reading email at home and catching up on blog reading when I have free time at work. Jeff has been working on our computer and after careful shopping for the best prices on parts, he replaced the hard drive and another piece that I don't remember the name of. It is amazing how much the price of computer parts vary from one store to the next.

Hopefully I will be back to blogging with pictures soon!

One of our goals for 2008 was to fund my IRA for 2007. After lots of extra penny-pinching, I opened and funded my IRA with Scottrade. Most all the investment places give freebies for new accounts, Scottrade gave me a year subscription to Money magazine and Norton protection for our computer. ( Yes, we really need it too!)

Jeff and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary in March. We had a very nice dinner at home, boiled shrimp with baked potatoes. (I know most people prefer to eat out, but eating at restarants is not one of my favorites.) Jeff gave me 4 pieces of Circulon cookware and a gift certificate to Dress Barn. I liked them all very much.

I have been studying the deals at Walgreens and shopping their sales that work for us. In March, I did the Herbal Essence-Zest-Old Spice combos that came with Register Rewards. The correct amount of RRs did not print for me so the manager gave me a mail in form to get them. I am very happy to say that 21 days after mailing in that form, Catalina sent me $24 in Register Rewards! I was not expecting to get anything.

I've done a little bit of sewing since Easter. I made 6 black and white pot holders using the criss cross coaster idea.

I bought a wrap robe on clearance at Wal-Mart last summer for $2. It is really cute, pink with pink and yellow polka dots. But I did not like the way the wrap style fit and would come open. So I just sewed up the front and added a zipper. Now it is a v-neck style and very wearable.

Our weather has included lots of rain and mild temperatures. I always like it when we don't have to use our air conditioner or heater very much. Our plants in the yard seem to all be doing well. We try to use plants that come back every year, I think they are called perennials. So far, our perennials are looking great. We have a large rose of sharon bush, 2 rose bushes and a magnolia tree that all seem to be greening up and on track to bloom soon. Last summer, we planted 3 hydrangeas, several dianthus and an azalea bush as well as iris and lily bulbs from my in-laws yard and they all survived the cold winter and are greening up too.

My parents are on their way right now to Oklahoma for a visit with us. They like rummage sales as much as I do and it just so happens that tomorrow will be the bi-annual $1 a bag sale at local church. I have been going to it for years and it is my very favorite one. So hopefully tomorrow, I will have some pictures of our good deals to share with you all.