I'm gonna pop some tags

It's no secret that I love thrift shops.  I love that the items I buy are recycled making my footprint appear smaller.  I also love that there are a wide range of items often not coming from big box stores which allows me to find more unique clothes for the girls.  Don't get me wrong I still frequent Target and Old Navy but shopping at the Thrift Shop means I can find good quality brands for way less.

Ninety percent of our girl's huge library are books from thrift shops.  I really can't imagine paying more than $1 for a book.

I'm tempted to share my favorite thrift shops around Chicago on the blog but you're going to need to message me or comment below with your email address for me to send those along.

Here's an example of a shopping trip we made this week to the thrift shop:

1 pair of Keens for Sanne
1 pair of sandals for Ivy
1 pair of wedged heels for me
1 pair of handmade booties for Nilsa
2 books for the girls
1 Melissa and Doug puzzle
2 pairs of shorts for Sanne
1 Land's End bathing suit for Sanne
4 dresses for the girls including a baptism dress for Nilsa
2 Mini Boden tanks for the girls
1 Marc Jacobs shirt for Sanne

Grand total: $20.06

Added bonus - Anything I buy for Sanne will be used by three gals.

Cha-ching.

Inspirational video here.

Waste Not

One thing I've learned about my own buying habits is that I tend to always feel the need to plan for a rainy day.  While it's good to have staples in the pantry to avoid the impulse trips to the store I have found that meal planning allows me to only buy what I need for the week as well as basic items for the pantry.  I am spending way less money by shifting my thinking in this way.  Here's a great list of tips on how to avoid wasting food sent to me by by cousin-in-law Kristin.

For me, it's important to remember that it's not just about saving money but it's about being good stewards of our resources and our environment.  More on that later.

This list is taken from the website: cookingmatters.org

Top 10 Tips To Waste Less Food

The average American family throws out $1,600 worth of food a year. As seen on the Food Network’s special The Big Waste, food past its prime can be turned into a delicious meal. You can save money and help reduce food waste in America with just a few smart shopping and cooking tips from the experts at Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters.

1. Shopping matters: Reducing food waste begins at the grocery store.  Live by the motto “Buy what you need, and eat what you buy.”  Always have a plan and a list before going grocery shopping.  Check your pantry and fridge before you head to the store to make sure you’re buying what you really need.  For more smart shopping tips, watch this video.
2. Buy fresh produce a week at a time: Buy fresh fruits and vegetables in bulk only if you will use them before they go bad. If you are able to get to the grocery store weekly, buy only enough fresh produce to last that week.
3. Cook with canned and frozen fruits and vegetables: Canned and frozen fruits and vegetables can be a good solution if you aren’t sure you’ll be able to use up fresh foods before they go bad.  Bonus: they are often more affordable than fresh and can be even more nutritious.
4. Stock your pantry: A well-stocked pantry can be the secret to whipping up a tasty meal from food that would otherwise go to waste.  Read more here about basic ingredients to keep on hand and get recipe ideas.
5. Adapt recipes to your needs: Learn to adjust recipes to meet your needs and use up what’s in your fridge.  Make changes to a recipe based on the foods you have at hand, including leftovers. Read more on making recipes work for you.
6. Make the freezer your friend: Freeze bread when it won’t be used right away, or if you have some leftover from a meal (bread can be stored in a freezer for up to 6 months).  Freeze leftover vegetables for use in later soups or stir fries.  Chop and store fresh fruits in freezer to use for smoothies. Recipes: Chinese Veggies and Rice, Broccoli Soup, Smoothies
7. Use up fresh fruit before it goes bad: Combine fruits into a fruit salad or top cereal with sliced fruit. Cook berries, apples or pears into a tasty crisp or cobbler.  Use overripe fruit in muffins, breads, or pancakes. Recipes: Yogurt Parfaits, Apple Crisp, Banana Crumble, Orange Oatmeal Pancakes, Pineapple Carrot Muffins
8. Use up fresh vegetables before they go bad: Add vegetables to soups, stews, casseroles, pastas, sauces, or omelettes.  Combine vegetables and a little salad dressing for a side dish or snack. Recipes: Barley and Lentil Soup, Chicken Soup,Vegetable Lasagna, Frittata
9. Transform leftovers into a new meal: Transform leftover mashed potatoes into a hearty soup by combining them with stock, a splash of vinegar, onions, carrots and any other veggies you have on hand. Read more on how to plan for leftovers.
10. Stretch ingredients over multiple meals: Use ingredients more than once to save money and avoid food waste. Add veggies to pasta or combine to make a mixed salad. Recipes: Pasta with Roasted Vegetables, Brown Rice and Orange Salad, Moroccan Carrot Salad

Ain't Nobody Got Time for That

Clipping coupons can be a great option for saving money but like most things I feel that it's great in moderation.  Often times I find that the coupons are not necessarily for things I need - lots of processed foods, convenient foods, etc.  But once in a while there is a gem so I continue to clip.  I also think that the time it takes to view and clip coupons can be a waste so I'm always careful to only take a few minutes to view.  Because let's be real - ain't nobody got time for that.

Where do I find my coupons?

Nathan and I decided to purchase the Sunday paper.  Now that our lives are a bit more streamlined and my work is taking care of the children and doing chores around the home we have some more down time.  And when I say down time I mean the half hour between the older girls going to bed and Nilsa is needing to eat.  But still . . . there is something so sweet about the Sunday paper.  Sanne has started to read the comics too so it's hard to resist.

With the Sunday paper comes Smart Source and Red Plum.  On Sunday afternoon I quickly breeze both of these publications and take a look at the grocery store advertisements to see if there are any amazing deals - Dominick's had organic blueberries for 99 cents recently.  (Don't ask me where they are getting these blueberries . . . not exactly local but at this point I'm not asking questions.

I also receive an email weekly from Coupon Mom and will sometimes look at that if I have extra time.  Because I shop on Wednesdays at Mariano's when each coupon is matched up to $1 I really do save quite a bit on items I actually need.

Cookies

I have a major sweet tooth.  And there's nothing I love more than fresh baked cookies.  But let's face it that takes planning. And while I'm good at planning in some respects if I want a cookie, I want it now.  I've started to double and triple batch our favorite cookie recipes.  I then roll the dough out into a log, put it in syran wrap, roll the log again and throw in the freezer for about 30 minutes.  I then take out the dough and cut it into 3/4 inch disks and place them in a ziploc.  Now when I want fresh baked cookies I only have to wait for the oven to preheat.

The cookies need about 2-3 minutes of additional baking time and we use a silpat on our baking sheet which I think helps make the cookies so nice.

I've tried this method with several different cookie recipes and have been satisfied with each.
Below is the recipe for our family's favorite cookies.  What's yours?

West Hills Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Place in a large bowl and mix:

1 C brown sugar
1 C sugar
1 t vanilla
2 eggs
1 C softened butter

Sift together and add:
2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking powder

Mix until just blended.

By hand add:
2 C oats
1/2 C chopped nuts (optional)
8 oz. chocolate chips

Spoon onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

My variation:

Barbara's Kitchen Sink Cookies

Sub 1/2 C chopped nuts with crushed pretzels
Sub 2 oz. of chocolate chips for peanut butter or white chocolate chips or a mixture of the two

Indian Potato Curry Wraps

This is one of my favorite recipes.  I noticed our red potatoes were about to sprout so we threw this together to freeze for a rainy day.  The girls love it too.


Indian Curried Potato Wrap

Recipe By :Moosewood Restaurant New Classics, The Moosewood Collective
Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :0:45


Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
2 1/2 cups cubed white potatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Neufchatel or cream cheese -- at room temperature
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup diced onions
1 clove garlic -- minced or pressed
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon *
1/4 teaspoon turmeric *
1/8 teaspoon cayenne -- or to taste *
1/2 cup frozen green peas
1/2 cup chopped fresh tomatoes
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
salt to taste
6 whole wheat chapatis or flour tortillas -- (7-inch)* *


Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Lightly oil a baking dish.

Place the potatoes and salt in a small pot with water to cover and bring to a
boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and cook for about 10 minutes, until tender. When
the potatoes are tender, drain and mash them with the Neufchatel, and set aside.

Meanwhile, warm the oil in a saucepan, and saute the onions and garlic on medium
heat for about 10 minutes, until translucent. Add the ginger, cinnamon,
turmeric, and cayenne, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add
the peas and the tomatoes, cover, and cook on low heat just long enough to heat
through. Stir the cooked vegetables and the lemon juice into the mashed
potatoes. Add salt to taste.

Place a generous 1/3 cup of the filling at the bottom of each chapati and roll
it up. Place the wraps seam side down in the prepared baking dish, cover with
aluminum foil, and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until hot.  Serve with mango chutney.

* We use curry powder in place of cinnamon, turmeric and cayenne.  We also used canned tomatoes if we don't have any fresh tomatoes and find it is equally as good.

* * Burrito size tortillas work well too.

Meal Planning

I love me some planning.  Sometimes I add things to my to-do list just to cross them off.  So when we were assessing our grocery costs it made perfect sense to get cracking on a meal plan.

Our  grocery store has double coupons on Wednesdays (I'll save coupons for another post).  So usually on Thursday or Friday when the younger gals are napping I pull out my menu planning template.  You can purchase this template here or just make your own.

Here's the play by play -

1.  Fill in meals where we already have plans (church for dinner, a party, etc.)  We also have a tradition of pizza night and a movie on Friday nights at our house.  We buy the $5 Mama Cozzi pizza from Aldi and add fresh toppings with a side of salad.  Seriously it's so good and we have leftovers for a lunch during the weekend.

2.  Look at the deep freezer inventory and pantry staples.

3.  Review coupons clipped from Sunday's paper and deals on Mariano's website.

4.  Head to Pinterest where I keep a record of new recipes I want to try or pull out old favorites.  I have now really focused on simple ingredients and vegetarian options to keep the cost down.

5.  Review additional staples that I can make homemade - granola, sandwich bread, cookie dough, etc.

6.  Check out this website to see if I can gather any additional items from couponing -

7.  Plan my trip to Mariano's for Wednesday morning with the girls.  They match every coupon up to $1 for a total of five but will totally let you do more than one order.  Honestly, while I'm not a major coupon girl I will say I do get satisfaction out of getting things like Gardein "Chicken" for 49 cents rather than $4.99 but I'll talk more about couponing later.

I know this sounds like a lot but honestly it probably takes me a half hour and then I'm ready to go for a week's worth of meals.  Not bad if you ask me.

Ode to the deep freezer

When you turn 33 you ask for a deep freezer for your birthday.  Because you're just. that. cool.  But let me tell you something, I love our deep freezer.  Initially we wanted it to be able to freeze fruits and vegetables while they were in season to enjoy all year long.

But now it has also been a great tool for cost savings.  Often I will make a double batch of a recipe and store the second batch in the deep freezer for another meal. This saves because you are buying the ingredients in bulk and actually using the entire bunch of parsley or whatever.

I spent some time researching what freezes well and educated myself in understanding how long items are good once frozen.  Here is good resource if you are interested in doing so as well.

The trick too is to actually know what is in your deep freezer.  So back to the spreadsheet I went.  I have a spreadsheet on our computer and review it before I meal plan for the week.  The good Lord knows we aren't interested in a week full of frozen meals so I try to dedicate one dinner a night to using up items in the deep freezer.

The deep freezer also allows us to buy more in bulk.  We shop at Costco for bulk items and appreciate their options for organic and fair trade food (and Starbucks brewed Kirkwood coffee).  In case you cared the items I always buy bulk for the deep freezer are - organic chicken, chocolate chips, butter, whole bean coffee and bagels.

The last thing I will say about my love for the deep freezer is it allows us to not waste as much.  While there are five in our family - one is on breast milk and one is picky as all get out so often times the portions a recipe calls for can be too big for our family.  After we have it as a few rounds of leftovers we can always deep freeze the rest making us feel like good stewards of our resources.

Budget

I am anxious by nature and therefore like control in my life.  It can manifest in positive ways.  I tend to be organized and good at planning.  But I can also freak myself out and be stifled by the fear of the unknown.  So of course, as we began the conversation of me staying at home, I needed to quantify the possibility with a budget.  And straight to a spreadsheet I headed.  How would it be possible to cut our income in half?  Would we end up living in a box?

We have done many things to cut down expenses and I will be sharing those as I go.

The most important thing we have found with regard to a budget is to be honest.  We took a hard look at our spending and tracked it through mint.com.  Love Mint.  We could then pull averages for costs such as groceries or eating out.  And thankfully there was room to trim in many of these areas.  It wouldn't be easy but I was up for the challenge since it was a part of my new job description.  Knowing that my ability to stay at home rides on our finances keeps me nice and motivated.

After we had a realistic idea of our spending we started to look at ways to save -

Child Care 
Man, kids are expensive!  One of the main costs we cut was the cost of child care.  Our second mortgage as we liked to call it.  And truly it was.  Going head to head with the cost of our apartment.  Two children in child care, which we had done before, made my full-time job close to volunteering.  So with the cost of child care out of the way by pulling Ivy out and keeping Nilsa home we were left with a little breathing room but it wasn't enough to make ends meet.

We also found that we would indulge in babysitting quite often.  I think it's an important thing for us to do as parents - to work on our marriage and have a break.  But it's a cost that can be brought down with less frequency.  We also had been paying for after school care for Sanne but no longer needed to now that I was at home.

Groceries
Holy Moses - why were we spending so much money on groceries?  I have several theories on this.  One was that we would run into the store when we needed one thing and end up spending $40 and some change.  We also would buy more convenient foods because let's face it time is money.  We have now cut our grocery bill almost in half.  I now average spending $50-$75 on groceries per week.  I'll save how I have saved this much for another post.

Debt/Savings
We are hoarders with our savings.  This is probably a good thing in some respects but then we also have some debt hovering over us.  So we took a look at what made sense to pay on and what made sense to save on.  I would still like to meet with a financial advisor on this to really get a better understanding.  We also opened up savings accounts through ING for each of the girls so when they receive money as gifts we can have a place to be putting it specifically for each of them for when they are older.  We also designated a savings account for vacations and one for emergencies.  We seriously have like six savings accounts (hence the need for a financial advisor).

Anyway, that's the general low down on the start of the journey.  The next step was the implementation and that's where this blog comes in.  I'll be sharing different tricks and resources that have allowed our family to move from two to one income and live more with less.

Beginning

I have been working full-time in the non-profit sector since the week after I graduated from college in 2001.  During this time I moved states twice, gained a Master's certificate in Career Development, a Master's degree in Psychology, went through years of grueling infertility treatments and have welcomed three children into our family.  But it wasn't until a drive home from Minneapolis last summer that my husband and I really began the question of 'what if'.

In June 2012 I had been working long hours serving as the executive director a non-profit that I loved.  But the work was stressful and demanding and Nathan and I both agreed that I was no longer in balance between work and home life.  With Nathan being a teacher and two children at home with a third on the way we couldn't imagine the possibility of me staying at home.  But through the miles down that familiar highway from Minneapolis to Chicago we began to search.

On December 11, 2012 after the epidural set in while laboring to bring my third child into the world I realized that I was now a stay-at-home mom.  I had resigned from the position in November and announced it publicly at the beginning of December but those are just formalities.  My identity as a woman, a mother, a worker had shifted in this moment and the moments to come.

And here I sit - leaning in to my new identity.  With my work now focused inwardly to our family completely.  A new budget and a new life style.

This blog is not an effort to speak generally for women and the choice between work, home or a hybrid of the two.  Each journey is different and each family must decide what is most life giving for their home.  This is a journal of my experience, my transition and resources for those who are interested along the way.