Ten Things I Plan to Do, Starting Now

 

I've been thinking a great deal lately...Always a sign that I am feeling it's time to change something because of costs, efficiency, etc.   I've got a short list of things here that I plan to begin changing.

1.  Stop buying cooking spray.  Here of late most of the sprays I find are actually the mister can sorts of sprays.  They are the least expensive option.  Also, the most inefficient.  I find that they tend to let loose a squirt of oil instead of misting, no matter how much you shake the stupid can.  And then the baked goods stick anyway, even if you've taken care to spread the stuff evenly about the pan.  It's also costly because it rarely lasts more than a few sprays. 

Mind you all, I'd stopped buying them a couple of months back and John requested I get some because he likes to use it when he's frying eggs.  Compromise time.

I'm not going to keep them on hand any longer for general use.  I'll tuck a can of Pam away for John to use when he wants to fry eggs, but for myself, I've been experimenting, and I find that butter spread over the baking pan/muffin tins works beautifully.  It's a higher cost option as well, even though prices have dropped a wee bit on butter, but it's not as wasteful as the mister type sprays.

I thought I'd also mix up a batch of the pan release spread that so many cooks are touting just now.  I don't know why some insist on calling it spray because it's not, but this recipe is similar to all the others out there.

2.  Stop buying Homemade mayonnaise and mayo-based dressings.  Years ago, when we were really unable to overspend and grocery money was very dear, we'd sometimes run out of mayonnaise mid-pay period.  I learned very quickly that I could make mayonnaise and it would turn out beautifully.  I don't know why I'd thought I couldn't.  But once money wasn't as tight and I'd built a pantry, I found the convenience of having jars of mayo on the shelf a luxury.  

Well luxury indeed!  These days a jar of mayonnaise runs around $7, $5 if it's on sale.  I think that's simply ridiculous.   And not only has mayonnaise jumped in price but mayonnaise-based dressings are stupidly high as well.  I haven't been able to buy blue cheese dressing (the brand we like best) for less than $5 for less than a pint of late.  

I make a very good homemade blue cheese dressing.  I prefer the homemade Ranch dressing over the bottled sort any day.  

When I noticed that my mayonnaise supply had dwindled to one jar, and knowing that now summer is done, prices will likely remain fairly high until picnic season returns, I thought, perhaps I could return to making my own mayonnaise.  So, I'm going to invest in a jug of oil (OY! also, expensive but if I'm saving on mayonnaise costs...it should be less expensive in the long run) and try my hand at making my own mayonnaise once more.

Honestly, I make so much from scratch these days anyway, that one more item isn't going to break me.

3. Make My Own Spreadable butter.  For the longest time I kept a tub of spreadable butter in the house because it was nice to just reach in the fridge, take it out and spread over a piece of toast.   And then I stopped buying it because when butter went up, so did the spread and I've not purchased it since.

Well, this section isn't about giving up spreadable butter.  It's about making my own.  I've discovered that over the past 9 months or so, we have gone through copious amounts of butter because of several factors.  Number one, Caleb is a butter fiend.  He likes it just all by itself.  If left on the counter, he will help himself to butter just to eat.  Spread on bread, he'll pick it off and ask for more, leaving the bread behind.  

Number two, I have a butter bell that I won in a blog drawing years ago, and I love it, but here in summer, my house is not quite cool enough to keep the butter.  It either slips from the bell and into the water, or it begins to spoil right away.  I think that's weird but there we are.  

In the vintage magazines and online there are loads of simple little 'recipes' for spreadable butter.  Some incorporate a small amount of milk and others add in a small amount of oil but they all result in a spreadable butter.  I'm thinking it will reduce the over usage of butter when we're making toast.  And it keeps butter out of the sight of the butter hound...so there's that, too.

4.  Save 10% of our income.  It's been a luxury this year to be able to catch up, so to speak, on purchasing things we'd postponed over and over again for other more high priority spending needs that we had.  I love my new winter coat and the all-weather floor mats in my car and trunk, and to have money to do the renovations (well...you know once they are done...).

Over the years, I've always considered adding to the sinking funds as 'savings'.  And it is, in a way since we don't spend it until that need is upon us.  But lately I've been feeling we need to be saving more.  We've long disciplined ourselves financially, but we've never actually saved 10% of our income except by default when we had a big tax return, which doesn't happen anymore, or we've had a windfall, which are also getting scarce.  

When Maxine asked me to join her in this end of year savings challenge, I was just beginning to think of increasing savings, but wasn't sure how to go about it.  However, this challenge has been eye opening to me in that I see we can make room in our budget for more savings, if I'll just trim and cut a little tighter and we can do so without feeling deprived, I think.  So, I'm going to change this aspect of our budget and plan to save each month as well.

I'm not going to tell John.  He has a bit of an issue with savings in that once saved, he fully believes money should stay in savings and never be used.  I tend to disagree, and that's why we finally agreed that we'd set money aside for annual fees and they'd be for annual fees only and not to hold on to till death do ye part...I'll just build up the money that is in a separate savings account that he can't see daily. 

And yes, the separate account is a joint account in both our names.  I'm not squirreling money away in my name only.  I only do that with my allowance and gifted money.

5.  Blog format.   Just a little change here.  I feel the daily diaries are a bit long winded.  That was partly why I separated the frugal week from the diary section.  I'm going to make the diary a wee bit shorter by reducing the daily entries.  Saturday and Sunday will get an 'honorable' mention on Monday's entry only if we've done anything really special.  I'll post Monday through Friday there and try to reduce the post by that little bit.  Neither of those days are generally 'newsy' sorts of days anyway.  There may be the occasional exception to the rule.

I'm also going to skip posting the weekend on Thrifty Thursday since we seldom do anything worthy of saving real money on those days.

6. Stop ordering an appetizer when we go out.  It used to be that we rarely ordered an appetizer.  It had to be a very special occasion if we did.  Truth, we're going to bring home half of our meal anyway, so the appetizer is totally unnecessary.  But one day we did order one and then the next time we were out we ordered one and it soon became a habit.  I loathe habits of this sort, because something that had been special to us no longer was.  It was now ordinary.

I remarked upon this to John a couple of weeks ago and we agreed, no more appetizers unless it's a special occasion or we're treating family.    Today when we were going out to eat, he turned to me in the car and said, "We're not ordering an appetizer..." and I immediately agreed with him.  We didn't and we won't.  Not unless it's a special occasion and even then, it's not a given that we will do so.  We might choose to order a dessert and share it instead.  We might just decide we'd rather do something at home.  We'll see.

7.  Change the arrangement of how some things are stored.   

It occurs to me that if something isn't working, I have the ability to change it...I've been fighting for weeks with my storage in the island.  Even before I brought back out the pan lids, I would fuss every time I went to the island, I'd fuss over putting things in or taking them out.  So, this week I plan to rearrange that cabinet in a way that makes better sense.

And ditto for the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.  I'm going to try a new arrangement and see if that doesn't work better for us. Actually, didn't have to rearrange exactly.  I found that setting up some bulkier items in a 'cold/flu' basket and moving it to another area considerably reduced a lot of the mess.  As has taking stock of what I have.

8.  Rise one half hour earlier than I've been doing.  This will net me enough time to do Bible study and prayer before I come from my room for coffee, and it means that I won't be distracted by Caleb's needs or supposed needs.  I really do want to make this half hour the 'first part' of my day. I feel the days will go more smoothly for us all if I have this under my belt.

9. Have a proper Meal Prep Day once a week.   I want to prep ahead all meals as much as possible so I can cut down on the overall time required to be in the kitchen.  Here of late, I've been using my quiet time to do supper prep and I often am just sitting down to rest when Caleb is up and ready to have all of my attention.  

And please note that sometimes, just having a plan is all the prep work required to get you through the smaller meals of the day, like breakfast and lunch.

This is something I've done in the past and for whatever reason, I let it drop.  It was so helpful in the past to have chopping done and meat thawing, etc.  

10. Produce food for the pantry weekly.  This can take many forms. I've noted many homemakers are adding steadily to their supplies, not necessarily in masses but a few jars at a time.  I've got a small garden growing.  I don't know that I'll ever have a large garden, but I have my few pots of things.  Right now, I'm trying to grow some cooler weather and later season crops.  I think I can possibly grow something year-round.    

I want to work at preserving things and even in small quantities it all adds up.  I'm thinking of Lana this past week who said she had enough green beans to serve fresh and put two pints in the canner.  Surely, I can do something as modest as that.  If apples are on a really good sale, I can make applesauce and apple butter and apple jelly and apple cider vinegar.

I can also make other things.  I don't buy a lot of convenience products, but I do like to have Ranch dressing, Onion Soup Mix.  I'm pretty sure I can put those together myself.  I often think how convenient it would be to have Taco seasoning or Enchilada sauce on hand, but I won't buy them except on rare occasions.  

This is something I've been looking into for several months now.  I've created a list. Begin where you are...Right?

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