To Market

I love it when we can shop at the farmer's market. I mean really shop. Not go there for an outing and pay outrageous prices for parking lot pony rides and market treats. Now, the rest of my family loves doing it as an outing, but what makes me feel really good is coming home with plenty of local farm-grown food for our bellies.

What happens is the kids get more interested in our (healthy) food when we all go get it at the farmer's market. We get kids preparing carrots for themselves. And kids in raptures over spicy black bean hummus on homemade wheat tortillas.

And if you're interested in reducing waste, it is pretty easy and very acceptable to use bags, baskets, and jars instead of plastic at the farmer's market.

Problem? I can't seem to get the dollar amount below $150 for our weekly groceries if we utilize the farmer's market, even with a very simple weekly menu plan. I've tried totting up the list for regular grocery store (milk, butter, cheese, toilet paper, grapes, bananas, flour, rice, coffee, etc.) and farmer's market (one treat, four veggies or so, a fruit or two, honey or jam or oil or hummus, etc.), and each combination seems to add up to $150 or more. And I want our weekly budget to be $100. I couldn't get to the magic number when we lived in Florida nor in Texas.

(I should mention we have a year-round, rain or shine market in our town. Pretty awesome.)

Another thing: We have to be just as careful about overspending at the farmer's market as at the regular store. Everything looks (and is) delicious. Great coffee, yummy bread, a snack from the most fantastic food trailer ever (The Peached Tortilla!), bags of kettle corn, bakery goods... There are a million ways to spend $100 at the market without having bought any of the basics.

But negatives aside, we got all of the following food for $50 at our farmer's market today:

• bag of carrots: $4
• two loaves of homemade bread, one "gourmet" with nuts and such that Xander picked out: $11
• one pound of ground beef from grass-fed cows: $7.50
• small bag of kale: $4
• small head of cabbage: $2
• large bag mixed lettuces: $4
• a dozen eggs: $4.50
• two beautifully frosted cookies: $5
• one pint of strawberries: $4
• a container of spicy black bean hummus: $4

Obviously, I could save a lot of money baking our bread, but I'm sick of my own homemade bread and so is my family. These loaves are going to be fantabulous. And if I hadn't bought those, I would have just "wasted" the money on a bag of coffee or a quart of milk anyway.

Day 7 of Money Saving Mom's 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}

Today felt wonderful. The assignment was to:

"::Get dressed in something that makes you feel great {there’s something about dressing in clothes that make you feel great that just gives you more energy and zest for life! Get your free copy of SarahMae’s ebook, Frumps to Pumps, if you need more motivation in this.}

::Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and create a list of weekly goals. I’ll be posting my weekly goals later today along with a link-up so you can share yours, as well.

::Set the timer for 15 minutes and vacuum the main living areas of your home."

I did all of the above plus the car clean-out and vacuum from yesterday. The floors needed it SO badly.

Before picture of the back of the car

After - how beautiful

These are free things we got today through coupons and deals listed at Money Saving Mom! Yay! Free!

reading for school

Ew - dirty floors

Ooh - sparkling floors!

Homeschool went pretty well today. We got quite a lot done in a relatively organized and cheerful way. We read the final story in Norse Gods and Giants, a story from Everyday Graces, ten minutes of The Hobbit, the introduction and first section of The Golden Picture Book of Science, the introduction (hilarious!) and first poem of Now We Are Six, and the end of Chapter 6 in This Country of Ours. We also read about nature journaling with this Smithsonian.org lesson plan I found today. 

Xander did 20 minutes of Spanish with Oh Noah!, one section of the Singapore Math textbook and one exercise in the accompanying workbook, one session of Xtra Math, a Spanish song sing-along, morning chores, do-a-dot spelling words for the week, and drew both a picture of his choosing and a picture narrating what happened in the chapter of This Country of Ours. For both, he wrote a caption. His handwriting is improving since the beginning of the year. We also did pledges to the flags and learned facts about the second president of the United States, John Adams.

I feel really good about all of that. Now to make dinner and do a general clean-up of the table and dishes.

Today's Free Things: A Thanks and Giving Countdown

Chocolate on my Cranium has a really nice post and free download here about doing a thanks and giving countdown with little ones.

Today's Free Things - ebooks, education deal, coupon

this photo of Xander's cracks me up

Today I took a look at The Prudent Pantry for a list of ebooks that are currently free, though the price could change later. I got the Weekend Homesteader for October. Hey, you never know.

This post at Money Saving Mom lists some good educational deals and freebies. I created an account at XtraMath, a free online math program.

There is also a free chicken sandwich coupon for Sonic here. (You have to buy a chicken sandwich in order to get the next one free.)

We also had a lot of free candy and other sweet things at Nick's preschool Halloween party today. Does that count?

The party included playing with Halloween-themed learning games and the regular items in the preschool room, listening to music, eating treats, and then playing in the big play room. When I asked about their favorite part of the party, both boys mentioned something they played with in the play room. Xander liked playing with a little stuffed animal joey that fit into a mother kangaroo's pouch. Nick liked the rice sensory station.

I was proud of the reading they did in the play room. Xander read aloud to a little girl in the room while Nick put on headphones to listen to an audiobook, turning the pages when the chime sounded. I was also happy to note that they both chose favorite things for the day that did not include candy. Not that a party would be complete for either one of them without treats.

First Tooth Lost

It is an exciting day around here. Xander pulled out one of his loose teeth.

He's had four loose teeth for a month or so, but the top right was the first to go.

It is adorable to hear him lisping.

In the second picture, you can see the new-to-me sweater I picked up at Goodwill. It is so soft and drapes so nicely! Here is my Goodwill haul for $15.08:

soft sweater and embellished tank

matching long-sleeve tan shirts in each of the boys' sizes, matching brown sweaters, long-sleeve Amazing Spider-Man shirt for Nick, Primary Mathematics 5B (Singapore) for Xander in the future

That's everything!

Erik made another Garden & Gun recipe last night: Butterscotch Pudding with Snickerdoodle Cookie Crumbs and Bacon Whipped Cream.

This was my serving: I could only eat half at one time because it was so savory and rich. Truly delicious.

Garden & Gun's article

And now Nick is playing with the wooden blocks while I play on the computer and Erik and Xander play chess at the library.

Today's Free Thing

I've mentioned before how I love Money Saving Mom. The more I read her personal posts, the more I think she has her head screwed on straight. No, she doesn't run around getting all the deals and freebies that are posted on her site. She doesn't even research all of them because she hired assistants to help her run Money Saving Mom. Her life is lived pretty simply but not at Little House on the Prairie standards, either. She lives in the 21st century. Overall, I like the balance she strikes.

So when I realized she was selling her new ebook, 21 Days to A More Disciplined Life, for $0.99 today, I considered, and then bought it.

There was a free download of matching calendar and planner sheets with my purchase. I don't know if I'll ever use them, but I thought I would mention it as today's free thing. :)

Now, I would go read the ebook right away, but I think in the spirit of being more disciplined, I should finish getting ready for our dinner guests instead.

Today's Free Things: toothbrush, Lego catalog, and Airborne Immune Support

The Peaceful Mom got me onto this one: I went to CVS.com and printed out the coupon on the lower right corner for $1 off a CVS brand oral care product. Allegedly, one can buy a CVS brand toothbrush for $0.99, but I have not gone over there to buy one yet.

She also put me onto free Airborne Immune Support samples here. You have to fill out your name, birth date, address, and some survey questions. I am careful to whom I give all my information. Should I admit that I am not too careful to double check my correct birth date on these things? What do they need that piece of information for, I wonder?

I am watching my older son pore over a free Lego holiday catalog right now. Both boys will "read" this thing carefully several times a day. A friend of Erik's passed it on to us and it serves us as free entertainment. We have tried to make sure through the years that the kids know they can't have just anything they want and to pare down their Christmas gift expectations a teensy bit, so we haven't had problems with them begging for any of the Legos shown.

Xander gets a free subscription to the Lego Club Jr. magazine, which he loves. The first child in any household can get a free subscription but the subsequent children have to pay for one. But why not share? Here is the link to the Lego Club membership signup, which gives kids a free two-year subscription to Lego Club Jr. It doesn't come every month; it may be on an every-two-months schedule (I haven't kept track). People living in Australia and New Zealand have to pay for the subscription. :(

Today's Free Things

Today, I got a free download of McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader for my Kindle app. I'm not sure if we will use the first one; I can see that the Higher Up and Further In curriculum calls for the Second Eclectic Reader in year two. Better go nab that second one while I'm at it.

Today's Free Things

Today, I got for free:

• Sample pack from Green Mountain Coffee - you have to Like them on Facebook. I truly do like Green Mountain Coffee because they are an ethical company with fair trade products who treat their employees fairly. We used to subscribe to their delivery service for our coffee but we ended that in a period when we were trying to save money any way we could. Like now!
  
• Squidoo account - It is free to get a Squidoo account and then you can write "lenses" on any topic you choose, as long as it's your own original G-rated (or R-rated, classified as such) work. Then you can potentially get revenue from ads, Amazon purchases through your links, and other revenue devices. At this point, you get 50% of pooled revenue and 50% of any revenue that might be tracked directly back to your own lens. I imagine that I will get about $7 two months from now, after writing content. The only reasons to do this are: 1) You know a lot about SEO or 2) You want to write content anyway and don't care if or how much you get paid for it. I don't always have time to write, but I do have a one-hour slot set aside every day to write Homemaking Cottage articles and blog posts. I could easily set aside part of that hour for Squidoo. Time will tell. (By the way, the links above are affiliate referral links, so I would get rewarded if you use that link to set up an account AND earn your first $15.)