Frugalicious February

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Everyone knows that the real New Year starts in February, right? January is just sort of a warm up. Maybe you brainstorm about various resolutions and plans. Maybe you just kinda get started and are working out the kinks. It’s practice. But February is for reals: you can’t say you just got back from vacation or you’re just getting over the holidays – that stuff is done. February is like 4:00 a.m. – nothing is going on.  It’s just you and your whirring brain, saying, “Are you going to make this year work – or what?”
And so it’s the perfect time to get started in earnest with the 30 Large Project. No more excuses. No monkeying around. But I’m not worried. It won’t be hard – like climbing Mount Everest or running for president. This is just being responsible. No biggie.
Throughout the month of February, we pledge to only spend money on “needs” (as defined by our guru Elizabeth Warren in her book, All Your Worth), such as food, gasoline, and things we are contractually required to pay, such as mortgage, cable, credit card balances, etc.  We will also keep track of every penny spent, so as to begin to get a crystal clear picture of where the money goes, even when we are really thinking about it and being on our best behavior.
When it comes to our (historically) monstrous food budget and my Whole Foods addiction, I expect to keep to my budget of $100 a week, not including our delicious weekly CSA box. This is going to be the tough part for me as I think a significant portion of our food – that is in excess of our $100 weekly limit – now comes from the “wants” column.  Expect to see lots of cheap recipes from Nerdhaven West in February!
We will report back on the blog each week with a summary, describing the ups and downs and what we have done and learned.  We will not publish a spreadsheet (although we have had requests to do that!) but we will try to get to the details as closely as possible so you can feel our pain . . . um, I mean responsibility . . . no – I mean our frugaliciousness.
P.S. Who says frugaliciousness isn’t all that photogenic? All the photos in this post are of free things around my house. And because you have made it this far in the post, I will reward you with a video of chickens arguing over string cheese. Click here: LoudMo

Learning to Sew and Make and Do

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A few years ago my husband gave me a sewing machine for Christmas. A complete surprise to me, it was both a fabulous and a threatening gift.

“Now I can make anything!” was my first thought, quickly followed by, “but I don’t know how to make anything!”

Sure, I made a duffle bag in home economics class in 8th grade. Clearly, that was many years ago, since I suspect home economics hasn’t been offered in grade school for about 30 years.

Alas, the machine sat unused as I focused all my energy on a newborn. About a year later, with a one-year-old daughter, I finally took a community education sewing class offered at the nearby university. As I learned the ins and outs of the sewing machine, I was excited by its abilities and how easy it was to sew basic items. In the class I made a pillowcase for a throw pillow from an old men’s shirt. Armed with some false confidence, I proceeded to plan to make more things. Just what those things were to be I didn’t yet know. The pillowcase sat unused. Another year or two passed and, as of yesterday, I’d done nothing more than hem a few pairs of pants with the machine. I felt a bit defeated; time for a confidence boost, and another class.

This time I decided I was going to make something I would use from something of little use. The pillowcase dress making class, which cost $35, seemed a perfect candidate. My daughter Clara looks cute in just about anything, so how could I go wrong? Inadvertently, I upped the difficulty level with my choice of “fabric” — I brought one of my mom’s old flowing, gathered Laura Ashley skirts to repurpose into a simple girl’s dress. Other expenses included bias tape and some thread – about $6.

I gained a true appreciation for how much preparation goes into a sewing project, as well as the number of techniques there are to master. Finishing seams, using the zigzag stitch, using fractions while calculating seam allowances, planning the process of turning a skirt into a dress – let alone measuring, cutting, pinning and, heck, even ironing – was tough. Oh, and sewing a straight, clean line wasn’t easy either. Given my initial fear of the machine, I might have found the need to learn all of these new skills daunting, but for some reason it felt (and feels) exhilarating. Fun. Playful. Expressive.

I’m pretty gleeful about the simple dress I made for my daughter. I’m going to make more. And I’m going to learn in the process. I’m going to become more confident. Talented. I’m excited. I don’t know why I have been afraid of that machine for so long. Sew. Make. Do. — the name of the business where I made my first dress — is a smart moniker that really sums up the empowering feeling one can get from the act of creating.

I find it inspiring to make clothes and toys for Clara. She is going to be my muse. Eventually maybe I’ll become brave enough to make clothes for myself.

Fresh and Exciting

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So we are doing taxes and financial aid forms for colleges ($55K a year for college!  Really? Just in case there wasn’t enough of a divide between the 99 percent and the 1 percent . . . sheesh don’t get me started). We are up to our eyeballs in money talk these days. So for a minute or two I am going to put off the actual hard-core analysis of breaking down our finances and skip to healthy, simple (and cheap) food, which is what I’m trying to work on every day, anyway.

I’m trying the basics: Living my life responsibly and making my own stuff, when I can – and trying to learn something new every day. Recently, I learned that I can make yogurt. This is not trumpets-blaring news, I know. But it’s exciting for me . . . I finally did it after wondering about it for, like, ever.

Folks have been making yogurt – in a zillion different forms – all over the world for generations upon generations, probably as long as mammals, bacteria and humans have co-existed. (I’m picturing the first moment of yogurt – some suspicious wife passes some old, curdled milk toward her husband and says, “Taste this – is it still good?”) I am happy – okay, proud – to now be part of the flow of the history’s yogurt-making peoples.

I can’t believe it took me this long to try yogurting myself. This is easy, tasty and cheap – just like they did it in the old country. It is really a testament to the power of marketing that we all go out and buy this stuff when it is so easy and soooo much tastier to make it at home. This yogurt does not resemble the typical grocery store kind at all.  It’s more like what you’d get from Greek yogurt – but the flavor is not just tangy, it’s delicious. Maybe because it is made so fresh.

Yogurt
Adapted from Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages by Anne Mendelson (Although the recipe is all over the place, I like to cite a reliable source.)

If you and/or your family are not yogurt freaks, like we are, you could just cut this recipe in half. It works just fine and heats and cools faster.

Ingredients:
1/2 gallon whole or 2 percent milk
3 tsp. plain unflavored yogurt with active cultures

Equipment:
2 quart-sized glass jars
Gas oven with pilot light (or not, see Note below)
Candy thermometer (or you can just eyeball it)

1. Heating/Cooling: Pour the milk into a heavy saucepan.  Attach the candy thermometer, if using. Heat to 180F (until it’s just about to boil). Take the milk off the heat and cool to 110 º F (not quite hot to the touch). You can put your pot in a larger bowl with ice water to speed up the process to 10-15 minutes or so. Or you can just let the milk cool on its own (while you watch the Daily Show, for example) for 25-30 minutes or so.

2. Inoculating: Put 3 Tbsp. of store-bought yogurt in a small bowl and stir about 1 cup of the milk into it. Then stir this mixture back into the pot of milk.

3. Incubating: Pour the milk into the two quart-sized glass jars. Gently place the two jars in the oven – no need to cover – and then do not disturb or jiggle or bounce or jounce or anything for 6 -7 hours. My routine is to make this overnight – the kitchen is quiet, and I get to cook while I sleep. Nice.

4.  Waking: In the morning, shuffle into the kitchen to find two containers of yogurt in the oven! I save one to use in smoothies (awesome – although what will I do without that constant stream of 32 oz. plastic yogurt containers coming into my life?). With the second container, I move onward – and upward – to step 5.

5.  Draining: This step isn’t necessary if what you are want is a yogurt to use in smoothies, or if texture is not a big deal to you. But if you want a hauntingly delicious yogurt to eat with honey or preserves, or to use in a dip or salad – you really must drain it. Once I tasted the drained yogurt – I couldn’t get the taste out of my head. I wanted more . . . Here’s the step: Line a strainer with a bandana (see fancy orange bandana in photo above) and place it over a bowl deep enough to catch 4 cups liquid. Then pour the yogurt into the strainer and let sit about 3 hours. Turn the yogurt out into your storage (or serving) container and stir until smooth. Serve yourself some yogurt right away, spoon some honey on top and . . . prepare to have your mind blown. Enjoy.

Note: Denise has joined the yogurt-making flow by making yogurt without a pilot-lit oven. You go girl! Just use a hot-cold plastic container, or wrap the jars in towels and put them in a cooler. Whatever it takes to keep the incubating yogurt cozy at 110 º F. If the temperature drops below 110 º F, the yogurt will be thinner or take longer to set. But as long as you have the active starter and a peaceful place for the yogurt to incubate – yogurt will happen.

P.S. Making yogurt at home is also – big surprise – cheaper than buying it at the store.  Two quarts of this yogurt cost me $3.00 to make (I used 1/2 gallon of organic milk, which I buy at Trader Joe’s for $5.99/gallon). While the price for one quart of organic yogurt at TJ’s is $2.99. So I am getting two for the price of one by making my own.  True – when I don’t buy the yogurt at the store I do not get the quite useful plastic tub it comes in . . . but I will trade the tub out for being that much closer to saving 30 Large.

P.P.S. Did you like my old-school yogurt photo? I took the photo on my phone and old-schooled it on this cool Japanese site. I’m going there now to make all my photos old.

Rainy day accounting

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Rain. Slow, steady, glorious rain. Florida desperately needs it. I didn’t realize how much I needed it. The sound helps focus and calm me. The pervading damp gives me permission to postpone my many outdoor tasks. Rain removes the excuses that keep me from planting my rear in the chair and writing about budgeting. I’m not resistant to writing itself, just to the hard work of examining our expenditures that I must do first.

Number crunching is not my strong point. So why am I taking on the 30 Large Project? Because I want to continue to grow and learn, because what one focuses on becomes stronger, because of the platitude “ignore it and it will go away” also applies to money.

My DH may, or may not, agree, but it seems to me we spend on whatever we want, whenever we want it. Denial is not in our vocabulary.  Although our income is fairly secure, it is certainly not exorbitant. Hence, I am in the early chapters of All Your Worth, preparing for the worst.

Step One of the budgeting process in Warren’s book is to figure out how much we are spending on needs, wants and savings. I have decided to focus on the needs category first, and the rest should follow from there. To do this I first had to get a handle on where all the money is going, which for us, was difficult.

After a teeth-gritting, round-one look at the household income and expenses, with a look to how much we spend on needs (shouldn’t be over 50 percent of after tax income), I have been forced to realize there is no gain (in the form of a “lifetime money plan”) without a whole bunch of pain.

“Needs” includes certain types of expenditures that I decided to group two ways. First, I listed things we have a legal obligation to pay: student loans, mortgages, basic utilities, auto and home insurance, gym membership, cell phone contract, and preschool.

And, second, I included things we need to survive: medical prescriptions, health insurance, food, transportation, life insurance and retirement plan.

Even as I type this list of what I included, I see some things shouldn’t be in there – obviously the retirement plan should be in “savings”. Clara’s school should be in “wants,” since I am not working and we could remove her if we had to for a small fee. I need to refer to the book to see where life insurance should go. Also, I have found that our gym membership contract is up and we now pay monthly — so we can move that to wants. See — I was not expressing false modesty when I wrote I wasn’t good a number crunching. I found errors before hard math was required.

After shifting these items, I totaled the cost of our needs and divided it by our after-tax income multiplied by 100. I found we spend about 63 percent of our after-tax income in the needs category. Ugh.

A quick glance at what is left over and my worst fears are realized – it seems that the remainder goes primarily toward wants. Cable television is a want, after all.

So, what to do to bring our “needs” number down? Warren is no nonsense in her advice: basically, she says, get real.  She directs readers to assess the big-ticket items first, since those have the greatest impact on the bottom line. Leading me to my next assignment – slash, slash, slash. I’ll report back soon.

Take it Easy

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I am writing this post while standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. Not really. I am trying to take Glenn Frey’s recommendation and “take it easy.” In my mind, I am right here, chillin out:
Winslow AZ Image by Rogie 09 via Flickr

As part of the 30 Large Project, I have decided to try to feed my family of four for $650 a month.  “Whoa!” I hear from my friends, “That is hard!”  I’m thinking no: climbing Mount Everest is hard.  Running for President is hard.  Grocery shopping is not hard.

Rather than adopting an excuse why I can’t feed my family more cheaply (like, it’s hard), I’m proceeding with the attitude that it’s easy.  Why not?  Food is not rocket science (which, I hear, is actually not all that hard).

Taking the easy route, I’m starting with rice and beans – it’s not like I’m going to make this cheap eating stuff work with filet mignon.  I’m also starting with Indian food: flavorful, lots of veggie options (veggies being cheaper than meat), and our kids really like it.  It’s probably the #1 thing they fell in love with on their trip to London a couple summers ago.  No, not the Tower of London or scones or theater: Indian food was the take away . . .

So I got an Indian food cookbook, Vij’s at Home: Relax, Honey (even the title seems to take it easy).  We have been to Vij’s restaurant in Vancouver, B.C., and had the greatest time, so I was happy to get the chance to try some of their food at home.  Turns out, Indian food is super cheap – and can be easy to make as well.  Funny, I always thought making Indian food was hard – you know, like ending global warming.

Back to rice and beans.  I made their Rajmal Chawal (aka kidney beans and rice).  It was delicious.  We ate it for dinner (with a veggie alongside) and then we had enough for several lunches of leftovers.  See? Cheap and easy.
Kidney Beans and Rice aka Rajma Chawal
Adapted from Vij’s at Home: Relax, Honey by Meeru Dhalwala & Vikram Vij

The first time I made this, I made it exactly as the recipe instructed, but I thought – while it was super yummy – it was too watery and too spicy.  We also really like ginger, so I added extra. I have given you my preferred measurements here. Feel free to add more cayenne (up to 1t) and more water (up to 6 cups) if you want it spicier or soupier. If you (like my sister) are not a fan of kidney beans (as a kid she meticulously removed them from her chili) you can switch out for pinto beans.

I’m not always great with getting the ingredients all ready beforehand, but it is a must with this recipe.  Chop the onion, press the garlic, grate the ginger, and measure out all the spices into a small bowl before you heat the oil.  It makes this recipe so much easier to put together. And easy is what we are after, after all.

½ cup canola oil
1 large onion, chopped small
2 Tbsp. chopped or pressed garlic
3 Tbsp. grated ginger
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1½ Tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. turmeric
1 Tbsp. ground cumin
1 Tbsp. ground coriander
1½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. ground cayenne pepper
½ cup plain yogurt
4 cups water
3 14-oz. cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
5-6 cups cooked brown basmati rice (next recipe)

Heat oil in a medium pot on medium-high for about 30 seconds. Add onion and sauté until slightly dark brown, about 8-10 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for 2 minutes, then stir in ginger and tomatoes. Add chili powder, turmeric, cumin, coriander, salt and cayenne and sauté this tomato sauce for 5-8 minutes, or “until the oil glistens on top,” as my friends Meeru and Vij say.

Put the yogurt in a small bowl. Spoon about 3 tablespoons of the hot sauce into the yogurt.  Stir well, then pour the yogurt mixture into the pot of sauce.  Cook for about 2 minutes.

Add water, stir and bring to a boil on high heat.  Add kidney beans, stir and bring to a boil again.  Reduce the heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes, or more, if you want softer beans.  The recipe can be made ahead and reheated after you are done driving your daughter to theater rehearsal.

Serve over Brown Basmati Rice (next recipe) with a spinach salad or another veg on the side.

Brown Basmati Rice
Adapted from Vij’s at Home: Relax, Honey by Meeru Dhalwala & Vikram Vij

The kids used to complain about brown rice, but this stuff they love.  The other day when I was cooking this rice, my daughter came home.  The first words out of her mouth were, “Omigod, home smells awesome!” Really, what is better than that? You can make it without the cumin seeds and/or onion, but your daughter won’t have the same reaction.

This makes 6-8 cups rice, we always have leftovers, so we can have it with the leftover beans for lunch.  When making Rajma Chawal, start the rice first because it takes longer to cook and can sit covered on the stove for awhile.

2 cups brown basmati rice
2 Tbsp. butter or canola oil
1½ tsp. cumin seeds
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 cups water
1 tsp. salt

Place rice in a medium bowl, rinse under cold water and drain.  Repeat the rinsing/draining, then set rice aside.

In a large pot over medium heat, melt butter or heat oil for a minute.  Add cumin seeds and sizzle for 15 seconds.  Add onion and sauté until browned, about 10 minutes.

Add water and salt to the pot, then add rice and stir.  Increase heat to high and bring to a boil.  Immediately reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes.  When the time is up, turn off the heat and keep the lid on.  The rice will steam and stay while you finish the beans and/or pick your kid up from basketball practice.

Then when you are done cooking and schlepping kids and eating – go take it easy.